


Awake The Nation

by Quoshara, speakmefair



Series: Ready Materials [2]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Canonical Character Death, Mention Of Dub-Con, Mention Of Genocide, Multi, Pirates-Who-Are, Pirates-Who-Aren't, Planetary Annihilation, Sci-Fi, Spacers, Time Loop, space
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-24
Updated: 2013-08-24
Packaged: 2017-12-24 13:06:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 71,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/940327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quoshara/pseuds/Quoshara, https://archiveofourown.org/users/speakmefair/pseuds/speakmefair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"If we wish to make a new world we have the material ready. The first one, too, was made out of chaos."</p>
<p>Saito, now carving out his empire of City-Planets after Cobol's destruction, has chosen Arthur and Eames to act as the public face for his new laws, based on the creed of tolerance, acceptance, and freely-given amnesty to all. </p>
<p>But his vision has not yet become a universal truth, and when rumors begin to emerge of another surviving Psion, Eames and Arthur begin to suspect that a new war, one against time and choice, may be coming. Arthur is convinced that Station Nine, the illegal space-station in Quadrant Thirty, will hold the answers. Eames thinks he's about to unearth everything that should have died with the Psions. Neither of them have considered that this might just be one and the same thing.</p>
<p><i>There is only time</i>, said a dying Mal on Cobol.  But time's the one thing they're all running out of.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. prologue: {the style of nomads}

**Author's Note:**

> Art for this fic can be found [here.](http://itseemsneater.livejournal.com/7920.html) (Not dial-up friendly. Large images)

**prologue: {the style of nomads}**

Although it was less common than it once had been, Eames and Arthur did sometimes go places without each other. There were simply some elements of the people who were still far too wary of ex-City Corps soldiers... no matter **how** ex they were. 

So while Arthur, out of Eames's line of sight if never out of his thoughts, wandered among the current troops, showing them that Saito and Dom wanted them, as long as they were willing to adjust to the new order of things; Eames, knowing that he too was a permanent mental resident in Arthur's thoughts, if equally unseen by his observer, wandered among some of the less savoury citizens. Both of them, wandering with seeming aimlessness and utter deliberation, trying to give hope to those who believed themselves forgotten, discarded, unthought-of, vanished. 

Eames and Arthur, even separated, even apart, perhaps _especially_ when apart, were trying to be the seen and unspoken and the living promise that those others mattered, too. The unhomed, the unnamed, the outcasts, the silent, those who would once have lived out their lives in the Houses of the Dead. 

The unspeakables of the Gates-Planet, who had come into being far beyond even the Horn Gate's protection; they too would fit in, they too would have a place by right, and they would never be forgotten. They were not forgotten.

And in some cases, Arthur and Eames, separately and together, they would find those people, the unspeakables; they would find the unhomed, the unnamed, the unwanted; they would find them, they _did_ find them, and when they did, they gave them all the words and the use of them that had never been allowed; and made the promises they knew they now could, and yet reminded them (gently, gently, there was no need for Arthur's love of blood or Eames's callous turning-away, not now) that although Saito welcomed them; welcomed all; for Saito had and always would keep his word on that— there were still rules that had to be followed.

Eames reminding them that he was still alive because once he had evaded the rules that now Arthur enforced. Arthur reminding them what clemency truly meant, what justice might begin to mean once more.

Both of them, teaching, separately and together, what freedom truly could mean.

~*~

The bar Eames was lounging against was one of his regular stops. It was located near the main spaceport of what had once been Cobol's Gate-City, a little back from the harbour and Aqa, just off a side-street of memory from where Ariadne had once loved to buy her sparkling lemon-caf drinks.

From where, with Arthur drenched in blood not his, and Eames wearing an old half-fused Celtoid mod, and Ariadne stowed away in a metal-floored corner, and Yusuf trying to create time, and Dom almost catatonic, they had made their world-rending escape from Mal —

 _from Mal so very lost to them all and still reaching for Dom from her prison-haven of mental wiring; from a Mal changed beyond their recognition and yet still clutching at the love she had once known; from a Mal who had been searching, with every tendril her new mind possessed, for the man who had helped to begin her creation and destruction; from a Mal who had been grasping blindly outward from her throne of ultimate technological power , but he did not think about that any more, they none of them thought about that any more, unless in the grip of nightmare_ — 

— and, as a memorial to what had once been a hub of business and trade alike, it was therefore open to all types of people.

And it was why Eames was there. Not to remember the appalling past, but to push through the present, to force himself onwards as the face of Saito's future.

The drink in his hand was good and strong, but he was mostly holding it for artistic value rather than because he actually wanted it. Fitting in was always the first step in getting people to talk to him. Some were still almost as intimidated by his tattoos (visible now, always visible, showing the world what he had lost and gained each time he showed himself to their curious and incurious gazes) as they were by Arthur's 'ex' City-Corps status.

Eames never fell into the trap of letting the holos make it easier for him. 

He lived in Saito's world, now, the world where a ruling figure could say 'I cannot stop what people think. But I can forbid its demonstration. And I do. I have.' 

He lived there, he lived with them, he lived in Saito's peace and he was among the faces of that peace, and he refused to hide.

There were things that the holos had taught him, like dust that refused to leave corners. The ability to charm, to fit in, to pick up on what was needed, to be a different man, to be what the people he spoke to considered to be a better man.

A better man than a Psion.

"There's no better man," Arthur would say bluntly on their return to what Dom called 'home', as Eames tried to scour his skin raw under the endless, endless, wonderful water of Seisui. 

"Don't be ridiculous," Yusuf would say.

Ariadne, on her increasingly rare visits to planet-side, only put her tiny, ash-scarred hand in his, and gripped hard, reminding him _me too, I know this one, because I am Saito's General and so me, too_.

It took none of the sourness away.

"Hey..." A slightly wary voice addressed him, "you're really him, right? Eames? I... well, you looked a lot different the last time I saw you."

The words had been spoken to him before, but generally it was a bid for familiarity or hatred, rather than a searching gesture.

"Yes... I'm Ea— Maf?" Eames suddenly barked out a laugh. "Yeah, I'm a bit bigger than the little fluff mod you intimidated into sucking your cock. How are you?"

Maf snorted, "Yeah... glad I didn't know you were such an ugly brute, I never would have been able to dom you."

"You didn't dom me _then,_ Maf... no more than I allowed anyway." Eames replied. They had both been playing a game, after all, one where they both knew the rules and did what was asked and they both came away happy. As a matter of fact, the only one who had come out of that little game less than happy was Arthur. "Let me buy you a drink?"

"Buy me the behind-bar, damn you, you fooled me twice on and it's shame on me!" But Maf's eyes showed no resentment.

"I did an' that," Eames agreed with a grin. "Damn, Maf, your face—"

"Ah, piss on you. Off his meds, you says. Brother, you says. Jaycree, an' I bought it!"

"I am," Eames said in his most Ivory tones, remembering Arthur's unwittingly fantastic impression of someone who was indeed just emerging from a hefty psychotropic drug cocktail, "the avatar of what will please."

"Yer a fucking holo with— hang on, did I ever really get me end away?"

Eames shook his head slowly.

"Well then I don't wanna count my foolings." Maf laughed, deep and throaty and familiar-sounding, reminding Eames of the nights with him, of his strange kindnesses, of the moment in a dock-bay where Maf had thought he needed to protect Eames from Arthur. "Never a once?"

"Never a once," Eames agreed gravely, and then started to laugh himself. "Ah, Maf, I was bein' sold out, what did you think I'd be doing?"

"Sure as hell not facin' for Saito." Maf was using honesty as trade-coin, and Eames repaid it.

"I brought down Mal so that she could destroy Cobol."

"Well, fuck me. Course y'did, you was with Cobb an' that. So it's I'm buying, then."

"I'll allow you a round," Eames nodded, "if you tell me why you're in City space? You don't usually come right in to a patrolled space."

Maf waved at the bartender and got their drinks, "Things are a bit unsettled at the moment, ya know? Thought I'd slide in and see how th' wind was shiftin'."

"It's a clean one, Maf. True facts."

"True?" Maf seemed to ponder that for a moment. "And you centered in it, eh? Good on you then. And with that other pretty one? Wait— that weren't a holo too, yeah?"

"No," Eames chuckled over the description of Arthur as 'the pretty one'. "No holo on him."

"An' not y'brother neither."

"Closer than."

"Yeah. Well. Worlds're gettin' that. Not a Psion no more, then, we'll call ye facer, and yer close-brother too."

"Call me—"

"Faces, aren't ye? Saito puts out a law, and there y'are, the Psion an' the Corps-man, makin' it real. Ah, Eames, it's no defamation, g'boy. Just what y'are, yeah?"

"I—" Eames shook his head. "Maf, it's not why we—"

"Don' matter, if'n it works." Maf grinned, and set a dram of spirits in front of him. "Din' come here for that, no-ways. Came to tell a Psion something he needs to know."

Eames frowned at that, "A Psion? Or me?"

"Both, yeah? Thanks t'all, you's bein' both, an' I was that bit worried y'might've been only the one of. Cos it's bad, an' the news will hit you both ways to offday." Maf leaned in closer.

And then he spoke.

And then Eames's universe was changed... again. 

Really, it was getting to be too much for one lifetime.

~*~


	2. i.  {what have you known of loss?}

**i. {what have you known of loss?}**

Their rooms in the Gate-City were much grander than any they had occupied when they actually lived there. Grander, but somehow more like home than they'd ever had, either, with people dropping in whenever they felt the need, and Yusuf and Ari technically just down the corridor, although they were flying high, those two, living in their ships up amongst the stars more often than they were actually on the ground. And even though Dom wasn't there, they still spoke to him almost daily and they still planned and discussed and offered each other advice, Saito hovering at the edges like a benevolent guide until they dragged him, laughing, into whatever they were doing.

It was home. It was he and Eames finally together just as much as they could both tolerate or as little, depending on their moods. It was warm and pleasant in a way that was almost frightening. Arthur still wasn't sure if it was the fact that Cobol had fallen, or if it was Saito's doing, or if it was just... this... with Eames by his side.

He tried not to dwell on any of it too much, and to simply enjoy it as it came.

Eames liked to do the public thing— to be seen not just as Saito's publicity, but to go to the bars of what had once been the Horn and the Ivory, to face down all those who had feared the Psions and laugh them into a kind of acceptance.

And when he came back, he never hid away. He turned to Arthur and howled against stupidity or came up with plans to defeat intransigence.

But now —

Now he was hiding.

_Hiding._

Eames. From him. It was incomprehensible.

Eames had come back from one of his 'face-evenings', shut himself up in the small studio that Saito had designated for him, and hadn't ventured out since. He hadn't come out for breakfast, or the booked meetings, or their usual evening meal, or when Dom's night-time call with the kids came through, or when Saito's voice came through the quarters clearly, asking (not concerned, Saito was never concerned) but in puzzlement, as to where he was. 

He hadn't come to bed the next night, either, which worried Arthur even more. They hadn't slept apart more than a handful of times since they first left the Gate-City. Even before they became— whatever they were now— they had always slept better knowing the other was watching their back. When Ari and Arthur had been sharing his narrow bed, in the days after she gave him her lovely little Onyx-kiss, it had never been for sleep, and rarely, if ever, had she stayed long enough for a full rest-cycle to have come to an end. 

And Eames had always known, somehow, known and come back to the room when she left, and never said a word about any of it, or asked why Arthur didn't go to her space instead.

But now Eames was hiding.

Hiding from Arthur.

Or maybe he was hiding from something else, something that he didn't want to face and knew Arthur would force him to, but it worked out the same, and Arthur was damned if he'd let it continue much longer. 

After all, he'd always been the one to force Eames back out of his retreats.

Arthur had more sense than to make Eames fear him. Instead, he spent two full cycles allowing this, ignoring it, seeming to be oblivious to it, and then, when Eames came out of the shower in the middle of the afternoon, at a time when they both should have been either in Council or at a promotion, he grabbed Eames's wet wrist and pinned him up against the thin paper pretence at a wall.

"Well, _hello,_ " Eames said, and even that attempt at lechery was poor, and Arthur pushed his arm higher.

"You going to tell me?"

"I'm not playing around, swear blind—"

"Yeah. Right. And you're not using Onyx-speech, either. What the fuck?"

"Arthur, it's not on you—"

"It is," Arthur said, not giving an inch, "if I say so."

"And what if I say not?"

"Eames!"

"Arthur!"

It was a deadlock that Arthur just couldn't let stand.

"You've trusted me with so fucking much... why would you say no now?" He moved closer, using his entire body to keep Eames still. "Just like I've trusted you, with everything."

"It's not—" Eames turned his head away. "I need to think on it. I— fuck— I can't tell if I don't know the straight from the straight."

"The straight from the—" Arthur shook his head, giving up on that path of hopeless circuitous logic before he could really start, and lose himself in it. "No. No, you don't need to _think on it,_ not on your own. That's why I'm here, Eames. We can figure it out together."

"I saw Maf."

"And this is where I throw a fit of terrible jealousy and you get to walk out?" Arthur raised an eyebrow, tried a smile. Eames just looked at him, blankly stoic, not playing. 

"Arthur, I saw Maf, and he knew who I was all right, but it wasn't me he came to see. He came to talk to the Psion. To _Saito's_ Psion. Specifically."

"Now why," Arthur said quietly, dropping his attempt at humour but never slackening his grip for an instant, "would he need to talk to a _specific_ Psion?"

"Because he'd already met with one," Eames said. "Because he already met with a Psion. Not me. I mean, me, yeah, 'course, but— he met up with another. Another one. Because I'm not— he says, he says there's another. That I'm not alone."

Arthur could feel his mouth drop open and closed it, rather forcefully.

"Eames, that's just not possible."

"Because your City Corp troops were so damn thorough, right?" Eames tried to push him away.

"Fuck, Eames." Arthur moved to block him again. "Stop. No, right. I know because I've fucking looked. I had Saito look. We both tried. Dom tried before either of us, and Yusuf did too, back when you moved in with him, all his guilt about being afraid of you, come on, you know _that,_ at least. Seven hells, we've none of us ever even _stopped_ looking. Do you think I... that _we_ want you to be alone, like some sort of... endangered species that we keep on display?"

"No, no, 'cos we, I, I never thought that, I never—" The old, disconnected mumbling, and Arthur let his other hand shoot up, hit Eames across the face, never let his gaze waver.

"No?"

"No! No, I just— I just— he said closer-brother, about you, and then he, and I, and Arthur, what if—"

"Okay, okay, okay, I get it, I hear you, yeah? I'm listening. You think your brother's out there?"

"My—" And Eames's eyes went wide, and he choked on his next breath, and he whispered, "Arthur, they're going to want him dead."

"Not while we live," Arthur swore. "Eames, I promise. If your brother's out there, we'll save him. _Not while we live._ "

That, at least, seemed to settle him down. Eames slumped forward, his head coming to rest on Arthur's shoulder. "Sorry, sorry, I'm sorry, love. It wasn't hiding, wasn't lying, not this time, I—"

"You don't have to explain, Eames. If anyone understands it's me. Hell," Arthur managed a smile. "I was the only one who couldn't be decommissioned, not after the mod-warp, and they cut me loose, remember? So I get it. We were—"

"And now the world knows that. And yeah, some, the worst-off, they're likely to start and trust in it, but Arthur, if there's another one of me..."

"They might stop trusting. I get it. But— another Psion? Eames..."

"I know, I know, but... can it, can, can it just be us for a bit? Just until I can word it around a bit? 'Til I can back-check Maf?"

Arthur ignored the stammering, the repetition, and answered only the last question, with one of his own. "Why? You think he lied?"

"Honest? No, I don't. But lied to, maybe."

"Hope so?"

"Dunno," Eames whispered against his neck. "Yeah. No. No. Yeah. Arthur, if there's someone out there like me and he didn't have Cobb, or Saito, or Ari, or Yusuf— Arthur, if he didn't have you, if he had no-one to love, if he couldn't trust enough to love, I—"

"What you could have been, is that what you're scared of?"

"Arthur. For once, shut up. You're forgetting what I am. What we were. What I did, what we did, what we were made for, the Psions were— you're forgetting what and who you _fought_ , you arse. _I can change time._ "

And Arthur was silent.

That was the whole thing, wasn't it? Eames could change time. He could time-jump; he could cross space because space was time, and it was all hardwired in through the damn thing on his shoulder that wasn't even really a mod, not in the strictest sense of the word, but more accurately a _time-jack_ , a connection to infinite movement that no-one could quite quantify. 

As little as it could be quantified, it couldn't be changed, either, as far as Dom and Yusuf could tell, not without killing Eames. And if Dom and Yusuf, experts of every known world's modification systems, couldn't tell, no one could.

But even though Eames _could_ change time, he wouldn't. He knew the dangers, and better, he knew it was something that shouldn't be done. If there was another Psion out there, he'd be able to change time too, and maybe he didn't have as much sense as Eames. Maybe he'd never learnt how to step back. Maybe he'd been changing things all along. Maybe he'd made things better... or maybe he'd made them infinitely worse.

There was no way for Arthur— for _anyone_ , even Eames— to know.

_"There is only time. We move through it. You know this. Psion,"_ Eames had told him what Mal had given him, words as her last bequest.

But Maf, who had once thought of taking two brothers to his bed because he wanted pretence and only that; Maf the hedonistic spacer; Maf who cared nothing for the City-Planets save what he could bargain out of them; solipsistic Maf, who was as unlike beautiful, destructive, self-immolating Mal as could be imagined, Maf too had brought words with him. 

He had brought them to the Psion; brought them to _Eames,_ even when he realised who Saito's Psion was, must be, could only be— even while and when he knew what must have been done to him and what mod-tricks had been employed upon him, he had still brought Eames the story. 

And Arthur knew that he had brought Eames— _and me_ — those words and that spacer-tale as a warning, not as hope.

_I can change time._

"Look at me," Arthur said, as Eames had to him on the tiny space craft, their little haven of firepower, while Ariadne created worlds of fighters and Cobb, distant holo-weeping Cobb, had finally grieved for their beloved Mal. "Look at me."

And stars and lords of all the hells, those were tears in Eames's eyes, and _no._

"I'm real," Arthur said quietly, still repeating the things that had once given him impossible hope, "I'm real," he breathed, and understood, finally, what that cost to say, and how much there was to fear in the saying of it, "I'm real, and if he's out there—" He swallowed, and found the right words, the Onyx-words, _Psion_ words. "Swear blind, Eames. I'll help you find him."

~*~

Where to start was the problem. How to find the man that Maf had only given Eames vague information about, without alerting anyone else to the fact that they were even looking. The Psions still had many enemies, as ridiculous as that had always sounded to Arthur since, yes, Eames was the only one left (they had thought) and how could you hate Eames?

Well, aside from his typical cantankerous and annoying personality.

You could, yes, hate Eames quite easily, especially after a couple of cycles spent working with him non-stop on something small and fiddly and requiring political nous and patience (neither of those were virtues that Arthur himself possessed in any great degree, so he could sort of sympathize with Eames's total lack of said qualities) but that was a case of hating Eames for being himself, which was completely acceptable and usually a given by the end of most allotted tasks. But hating him for what he _was_? Hating him for what he had been made into? 

Arthur had been designed to _kill_ what Eames was, but hatred had never been part of the dogma the Corps followed, lived by, had become as natural to him as breathing. Hatred had no part in a war, or so they had been taught, you killed because it was your order, not because of how you felt. 

Once you started having a cause, you stopped, you left, you cashed it in and bought a bar somewhere or went to a farming planet— but not to the training centers, you never tried to get work there, you had no place in that world, not any more, and you never, ever passed on what it felt like to want to fight because you hated.

But the Psions hadn't just been hated. They had been feared, and that was worse, because fear was unacceptable, and hatred could be explained, and monsters should never be flinched or hidden from, but only destroyed.

And there was nothing left, after the destruction of the Psions in their entirety, that could have inspired any sort of understanding or forward movement. There had been nothing there to move forward _with_.

So, if there _were_ another Psion out there, they needed to find him or her, and the sooner the better. Although, sadly, the more urgent this thought became, the more difficult the execution of it also became. 

Because when Arthur had said that they had done a thorough search for any of Eames's 'brothers' he was overstating the situation wildly. Yes, they had searched. Yes, they still had people making inquiries here and there, and would continue to do so, but the universe was a vast place to look for what could, at best, be a small handful of people. People who did not want to be found.

People who didn't want to be found for _very good reasons_ , one of which Yusuf had once explained in their cycles of exile; a moment of startling, pellucid sense brought about by a bottle of sugar-spirits with which something had gone badly wrong or incredibly right, giving the world a strangely fractured, glass-clear comprehensibility after only a couple of drinks.

"You know, there are reasons monsters go under the bed," Yusuf had said, and Arthur had been caught between _shutupshutupshutup_ , because even _he_ knew that was what Yusuf had been brought up to call the Psions, and there was no way that Eames overhearing that could go any place good, and _tell me, I think I know, but tell me_.

"They are hiding."

"Wow. Brilliant. Thank you. The monsters are hiding under the bed. And you really need to sleep this off, come on—"

"You hide, you know, if you are scared," Yusuf had said then, and Arthur had shut up, shut up in a hurry, because stars and lords of all, did the Psions ever have things to be scared of.

Eames had hidden _all the time_ , back then, hidden behind holos and cheap gibes and his bizarre flirtation with a Saito who had been masquerading as an AI. 

It hadn't occurred to Arthur, not until he looked at Yusuf's wide-eyed sincerity, and realized that Yusuf had been thinking about this for a long time, that the temp-mod designer blamed himself for part of that. That he knew things about Eames and what he came from that Arthur simply didn't. Because as much as Arthur had been taught _not_ to hate— Yusuf had been taught just that. To hate, and to loathe, and to fear, and to dread.

All that terrible emotion, encapsulated and made real for Yusuf by the mere fact of Eames's existence. Arthur couldn't begin to imagine how appalling that must have been for him— no, for the both of them— when the two had first met.

Eames had forgiven Yusuf for that long, long before. It had taken Yusuf nearly their entire time on the station before he had forgiven himself.

But even forgiveness came with a price, and to a lot of people that price was forgetfulness, as if not talking about the war would make it not have happened. It wasn't denial, exactly, but more like putting distance between the pain and what had caused it.

Ariadne had summed it up for him, late one night, both of them stretched out in the grass with the gentle warmth of Kazue's home behind them, the sound of the creek close at hand and the crash of waves from the further-off shore soaking over them. 

He had wanted, in that rare moment of shared peace, to talk about the past, to contrast it with how much more himself, how much more alive, how much more calm and focused and _real_ he felt there, but Ariadne had shifted in her little grass-hollow, looking uncomfortable, and cut him off. "I understand, Arthur. I do. But isn't better just to move on? To enjoy the fact that life is so much better than it was? We can't go back and change anything. Well, yeah, I know _Eames_ could, but he won't, so..."

She hadn't seem to understand that sometimes, sharing a pain could make it less. Or she had, but just didn't want it shared with her. Arthur had never been certain which it was.

Then again, Ariadne was unafraid of causing herself pain, so perhaps it wasn't as simple as that. She was the one who, on their arrival at Seisui, had given herself a scar-and-ash tat, right across the centre of her hand, had opened it up again every night-cycle and refreshed the ash and ink herself, refusing to allow regen-work on it, not even when faced with unanimous disapproval.

She had said it was to remember that 'this is where it starts'.

Arthur was in no doubt that she had meant hatred.

He wondered if that was what she was doing, out there among the stars with her command and her troops, her wars that she fought off rather than in; if she was running from a pain she had never wanted to know or share or understand, and had been given no choice about, all because she had once run away from the terror that Mal and Cobol together had become, and left everything she had once imagined she would become so far behind her that she, too, might as well have crossed space and time to reverse the past.

But none of this was helping him decide where they needed to begin. He had files full of intel, some of it current and some from his initial attempts at finding another Psion, but none of it looked particularly hopeful. It was mostly just rumors and possibilities, mixed together with a lot of _I know a guy who knows a guy who claims he met a Psion once._

It would take forever to follow up on all of it.

The best bet might be to take the little hard core of what Maf had told Eames and try to match it up with the rumors. It was still a bit like firing an arrow straight up at a cloud and hoping it would bring rain.

It didn't help that Eames, understandably, was caught between frantic denial of the possibility that rumor had some kind of base, and _equally_ frantic certainty that this possibly-existing Psion was in imminent danger of being killed. Rationality and sane discussion were only available at a terrible premium, and Arthur was rapidly running out of credits with which to afford it.

In their early days on Seisui, it had been Yusuf who had been the unwilling recipient of Eames's various terrible thought-processes, but that had led to Eames using his time-jack and Arthur believing he had deliberately chosen to go to his death, and after that, Arthur had laid down an ultimatum, his price for forgiveness.

That whatever Eames was thinking about, or contemplating, it would be Arthur he told first, no matter who could actually facilitate it.

The terrible thing about ultimatums, Arthur reflected, was that they tended to come back and bite you in the ass, because thanks to his having given that particular one, Eames told him each time a new variation on horrific possibilities crossed his mind.

Arthur was beginning to wonder which one of them would completely slip off the edge of calm debate into violence first.

"It's twice half again," Eames complained, his Onyx speech forcing Arthur to pay close attention if he hoped to get even half of what the man said. "Building. Want him live or want him dead, he's got a jack and tha's the thing. Then it's use it or not and neither is good."

Arthur nodded slowly. Yes, someone willing and able to use a time-jack would always be bad— bad in ways that he could not even voice.

"Then what's then, Arthur?" Eames asked him. "Can't let him. Can't remove it. It's screwed. Lock him or kill him then?"

"Eames, damn it, don't you think we should just figure out if there is such a person before we plan murder against him?"

But no, obviously not, that was far too reasonable, judging from the look Eames gave him.

" _You're_ the one who goes on about being prepared for all eventualities," Eames grumbled at last.

"Yeah," Arthur agreed slowly, "true, and yet I still don't really see how killing is something I have to prepare myself for, being as killing Psions used, if you remember, to be my fucking job— okay, and sorry, that's not what I meant to say." _Out loud, at any rate._

"Yeah, well so was finding them first," Eames said, not even vaguely mollified by the prospect of penitence, "and you're pretty shit at that."

Arthur closed his eyes and counted, silently, to ten in Higher and then in Basic. It didn't stop him wanting to punch Eames in the face, but it stopped him actually doing it, which he supposed was something. "Right. Well, I found you. So there's that."

"Yeah, and you took me to see Yusuf, which proves you're a rotten character-judge."

"No, I'm a very good one," Arthur said with the last of his patience, "I just like making these things called choices rather than planning a career as an executioner."

"I'm just trying to say what is," Eames scowled. "He has a jack and maybe knows what's right. But again, we weren't exactly trained for right, just to jump. That's what is."

"And so were you." Arthur pointed out. "But you have a brain, weak though it seems at this moment, and you managed to figure out that just because you have a time jack doesn't mean you can or should use it."

"But tha's me. And I had you and Yusuf and..." Eames scrubbed his hands over his face in frustration. "Want to find him, Arthur. Being alone is bad for us. Bad for Psions. We have so little but each other. Take that and we're nothing."

"You're not nothing!"

"And I'm not alone." Eames seemed to run out of steam at that point, settling down next to Arthur. "You never let me be."

"Yes, but that's because I'm a masochistic idiot," Arthur said with a faint snort, "it's got nothing to do with this discussion."

"That's you, self-abuse gone wrong," Eames agreed cheerfully. "Someone should've explained to you what that really meant, back in the City Corps." He made an unambiguous gesture with his left hand.

"They did, I use my right," Arthur said with gleeful malice, "and you keep this up much longer and you'll be finding out just which one works better for you, I can see your future clearly. It's true that you should know by now... but I guess you can't help it that you're slow."

"But I thought you preferred slow," Eames protested, and Arthur gave in to his sense of things that were right and just in the universe, and hit him.

~*~

Days later, Arthur still didn't feel much further along. He was equal parts worried and frustrated and very close to either locking Eames in a cupboard or shipping him off with Ari on her next training run.

The only thing keeping him from it was not knowing which one of them he'd owe an apology to. 

Something had to give, one way or the other, or maybe... maybe he just had to go back to the beginning and try to look at the thing with fresh eyes.

"Eames, I want to talk to Maf. Would you be able to find him?"

Infuriatingly, that made Eames look at _him_ as though he'd lost his mind, which Arthur considered to be bitterly, deeply unfair.

"Er. Yes? Yes." He paused. " _Why_? And, you know, what?"

"And how and where and thank the stars we know who, or you'd have the complete set," Arthur sighed.

"You want me to find Maf," Eames repeated.

"Yes."

"So you can _talk to him_."

Arthur sighed. "Yes. It's not a difficult concept."

"Well, yeah it is, because— seriously, you _want_ to talk to Maf?"

Arthur wondered why he ever thought talking to _Eames_ was a good idea, forget about Maf. "Yes," he said through gritted teeth. "Because he's the one who came to you in the first place. With the rumors."

"Yeah, but... you want to talk to _Maf_?"

Arthur whimpered.

"Really, darling, there are absolute worlds of reasons why this would be a very bad idea."

"I'm sure," Arthur just looked at the ceiling, because why was this his life? Why? "But it's the only idea I have at the moment. Are you afraid I'll go off in a fit of jealousy or something?"

Eames snorted, "More like I might, because you, my love, are exactly Maf's cuppa tea."

Well, yes, he had known that judging from Ari's description of the mod that Eames had been wearing when he was dealing with Maf on the station. And... well, Maf's reaction to _him_ , really. It had, after all, been fairly unambiguous. "I do actually know how to say no, Eames. And he seemed the type to listen... mostly."

"Yeah," Eames said. "That would be the problem. He listens. He remembers. He's very very good at both."

Arthur blinked at him. "You're being stranger than usual," he said eventually. "And making no sense, just so you know."

Eames just shook his head slowly. "Yeah..." he said slowly. "Right." Then he grinned, crooked and slightly manic and, because Arthur knew him and that expression never boded well, very worrying indeed. "I'm looking forward to this," he said, and Arthur's worry ratcheted up to a healthy level of 'oh shit.' "I'm going to really enjoy the levels of I told you so and gloating."

"Just... contact him, Eames," Arthur said, giving up.

He wished Eames hadn't been quite so quick to obey.

Or that he hadn't been whistling as he went off to the comm.

Or that he wasn't starting to realize that it wasn't Maf's ability to _listen_ that might be the problem here.

It was less than six council-cycles later that he found himself walking into the lobby bar of a little C-grade hotel on a planet called Vissu. It was near enough to some major trade routes to hold its own, but far enough out to not be crowded. 

Eames had fidgeted away at the last minute and asked if Arthur was _certain sure_ that he didn't want a temp mod that would make him look broader and older... or perhaps female, but Arthur had turned him down. He didn't want to get into the habit of dealing from the perspective of what could be considered a lie, even if it would be a small one.

Eames had muttered something about whatever happened being his own fault, then, and no-one could say Arthur hadn't been warned, but Arthur had simply tuned him out and decided that madness was actually incredibly boring when you had to listen to it for long periods of time.

Besides, he had a feeling that he was going to need all the advantages he could muster when talking to Maf— and surely being the man's type could only be one?

Famous last words, apparently.

"Eames! You gifted me! Ta and I'll see you later." Arthur blinked as he found himself embraced and nestled against Maf's chest. "Bettin' he hurts so pretty too, yeah?"

"Um..."

"Not so you'd notice, Maf. He tends to hurt back." Eames was obviously well amused.

"Well, it's better if they're feisty. You know that rings me."

"Excuse me..." Arthur tried again.

Eames made an odd sound that could have been a sign of the extreme pain Arthur really, really wished he was in right that second, but was more probably him trying not to laugh.

"Maf, lay off," he said at last, but it lacked any force to it at all, all energy gone into keeping a straight face. Arthur glared at him around Maf's myriad of chains. "I don't do gifts an' you know it."

"But," Maf said, and pouted. Arthur could tell he was pouting because he could _feel_ the pout. Against his neck. 

"No," said Arthur, firmly, and pushed Maf back, somewhat ineffectually, as he didn't want to cause too much damage to the spacer before he got to talk to him. Maf just wriggled, disturbingly unbothered by what Arthur was pretty sure was a damned clear rejection. It was a bit like having a close encounter with a rather metallic kind of leather-smelling squid.

" _Nice_ ," said Maf approvingly. 

"Quite," Eames agreed, "and wants to talk to you, he says."

"I like it much better when they use their mouths for other things," there was the pout again, but fortunately it was further away this time.

"It's about the discussion you had with Eames," Arthur began.

"Ah, fuck and all..." Maf sighed, "... he's serious."

"Regrettably, yes," Eames nodded.

Maf looked at Arthur and lowered his voice, "Woulda liked you better if y'was just f'screams... and so would you, I'm thinkin'. Ah well. Not here though, give it two bars and meet me in room 732."

"I'm sure we could work something out," Eames spoke a bit louder, covering. "Let me talk to him a bit."

Maf looked improbably delighted. It really didn't suit his appearance one bit. "Oh, so _that's_ an' how it— hah. An' you said not!"

"And I'm still saying not," Eames said patiently. Arthur had rarely heard him sound like that, as though he were as Ivory-born as Ariadne, as though Higher were his first way of speaking. Mostly because it usually heralded violence, and that usually had to be something he started, and because of that, generally, and in the vaunted name of Saito-based self-preservation, he tended to ignore it. It was still an odd combination along with the unmodified speech. "You're not helping, Maf."

Maf winked. "Gettin' my pay somehow, but."

"Maf..." Eames ran a hand over his face. He looked caught between despair and hilarity, which was pretty much how Arthur felt, so he almost sympathized, and probably would have except for the fact that Maf was still far too close.

"732," Maf repeated, finally released Arthur completely, and sauntered off.

Eames leant on the bar, shaking with barely-suppressed laughter.

"What the _fuck_?" said Arthur, and got a hand waved at him in return.

"You so asked for that," Eames said eventually. He was wheezing slightly as he tried to stop laughing.

"How the fuck did I—"

"Yeah, you know when I said Maf does listen, and he does remember, and this was going to be on you?"

"Yes," Arthur said, with a feeling of approaching doom.

"Well, last and first he saw of you, you had him conned into thinking you were just his kind of psycho and the three of us in one bunk or hells, on one floor or against one wall, would be just his dream."

"And he listened to me acting the psycho brother and he remembered," Arthur said, and then groaned. "You could have fucking warned me!"

Eames smiled at him, a look which really did hint at the unpleasantly biting kind of teeth, lying behind it. "Well, I sort of did, if you think back, but full disclosure? Come on, where would be the fun in that? You want information from Maf, Arthur, you've got to play by spacer rules."

"There aren't any spacer rules," Arthur said blankly. Eames's continuing smile failed to be reassuring.

"Oh yeah," he said. "So there aren't."

Arthur was feeling a bit— no, a _lot_ — out of his depth. He'd never wanted or tried to think like the spacers before, had never bothered to enter into a mind-frame where everything was a game and only the enjoyment of the process, not the results, mattered to anyone playing. The games were run on giving up parts of self, parts no-one would think of as being on offer, perhaps didn't know they possessed in the first place, unequal exchanges that left everyone the winner and in debt all at once, an ouroboros of unfair revelation.

Trading himself for something he wanted, be it theoretical or practical, was something he'd never done before. On the space-station it had all been Eames; Eames bargaining, Eames trading; Eames giving up bits of himself to keep them safe and hidden. They had never gone into details, until Arthur had caught up to Eames being dragged off of Maf's ship, playing a part of some holo that apparently wept on command and clung to space-traders' pants. He still felt guilty for allowing it to continue as long as it had had to.

He wasn't sure if he could do this... was certain that he didn't want to in any case. Still, how could he not do anything he could to help Eames?

And that was it, he realized, that was where he was going wrong. He was holding to his own codes of behavior, old ideas of honoring debts. But Maf didn't want debt and he didn't want fair exchange and he didn't even really want anything except, possibly, easy sex and to get the hell off-planet again, and probably, no matter what he said out loud or acted like, to never, ever have to see Eames again as long as he lived.

Maf wasn't here to trade with Arthur for information. Oh, he saw no reason why he _shouldn't_ trade for the information, now that they were in the same building, but that wasn't why he had chosen this shabby little put-me-up, and it wasn't why he'd agreed to meet Arthur in particular, rather than just Eames again. Maf was just having a thoroughly horrible time of it, and therefore, and quite understandably, he was going to see how much fun he could have while telling Arthur something Maf already thought should be known.

"I'm an idiot," Arthur said to the bartop.

"Well, yeah, I know that," Eames said. "And your point?"

"You'd never have let me within a space year of Maf if you thought this was for real."

Eames just stared at him. "Oh, it's for real," he said. "But then so's what you want. Maf's like any other spacer, Arthur. He likes playing the game, and he wants to know how _you_ play to win."

"What?"

"Well, he knows how I play," Eames said with a shrug. "No interest there for him. But you? He wants to know what you bring to the table."

"And how much is the con." Arthur nodded slowly. "Oh. Right. Obviously. We're back to dockside-style trading." The kind Eames had never let Ariadne even try her hand at, back on the space-station, even when she begged.

Eames's smile was just on the wrong side of bitter. "Isn't it always?"

"Yeah," Arthur agreed. They'd become good at it, since Saito's takeover: good at recognizing games for what they were and what should be given out as bargaining chips. But Maf and his upfront, cheerful assumptions of promiscuity and availability and— well, everything that most people just _didn't_ assume about others when it came to sex, unless you were paying for it, and oh fuck, yes, right, that was how they'd got into this whole mess of things-involving-Maf in the first place, Arthur kept forgetting that part— had thrown Arthur for a loop, reminded him of the time when he was the one who had nothing to bargain with except for a malfunctioning mod that sometimes proved useful, and he'd forgotten what he'd become in the meantime.

He shouldn't really have needed reminding. But considering the other aspects of the past that they were looking into, it was nevertheless a reminder, one that Saito would have called _timely_ , and that Arthur just thought having needed it at all made him look like he'd left his brain on Seisui, or perhaps washed it out there under the endless water.

Politics, after all, was just as much of a game as the one the spacers played. And, Arthur acknowledged with a wry twist of amusement at the back of his mind, the politicians didn't even _pretend_ anyone was going to get pleasure out of it.

On the other hand, they could have learned a great deal from Maf's cheerfully acknowledged sadistic tendencies. Honesty among Saito's fellow-leaders as to their obvious preferences would give them at _least_ a nine-day work cycle's worth of a winning hand, while they all reeled around in mutual shock at having told the truth for once.

Thinking about it like that, Arthur could see the reasoning behind Maf's approach quite clearly, and with an appreciation he'd never suspected he would possess.

~*~

The upper floors of a c-grade hotel, incongruously named the _Sapphire Sword Level_ , which struck Eames as the best example of wishful thinking he'd seen in a while, because seriously, _what?_ — were, if anything, even drearier than the lobby bar. The walls had once been (probably) a cheery yellow-beige but had faded to something more grayish and now clashed with the gold-orange-brown florals of the cheap carpet.

 _They could at least have tried for blue or metallic,_ Eames thought with a wince.

The lighting was dim, but whether that was in some misguided attempt to make visitors feel more relaxed or just to hide the more obvious decay was difficult to determine. The doors, at least, were numbered clearly, although not always in the same style. Room 730 had numbers formed from molded and reconstituted plasticate, painted to resemble wrought-iron, whereas their destination, room 732, merely had the same style of numbers painted on the door.

Eames put his hand over the doorside scanner, sounding the alert inside the room. The walls and doors were thin enough that they could actually hear the sound and see the light flash under the bottom of the ill-fitting door.

"You still sure about this, darling? You can still leave me to talk to Maf."

Arthur's face screwed up in a sort of sideways grimace that was presumably meant to show his deep thought processes but actually just made him look ridiculous and possibly as though he'd been interrupted mid-way through a holo-graft.

"I thought we just agreed he knows everything about you, there wouldn't be anything to trade, and it would be pointless for anyone but me to talk to him?"

"Yeah, but—" Eames shrugged, restless in his own body, which could sometimes feel more of a cage than the holos ever had or did. "Feel like I messed this up, making a point," which he had, because even though that point had to be made, he could have found a better way than making Arthur actually confront Maf and all his idiosyncrasies, "so if you wanted, I could just drag it out of him instead."

"And use up all future credit?" Arthur was at his dry best, which at least meant he wasn't too badly thrown by all the head-games talking to Maf involved. "No, I think I'll make sure something's in reserve, just in case."

Eames shrugged, unwilling to say now what he had deliberately withheld before— _I owe Maf, and he doesn't know why, and I'm afraid you'll give me away because you don't know either, and you two in the same room, talking, is one of my personal nightmares_ — and just looked at the door which, oddly, wasn't opening. He reached out to cover the scanner again.

"Hang on..." a muffled voice sounded from inside, "Keep your trousers on..."

The door was jerked open and Maf's face appeared, "... or don't. I think I prefer don't."

Arthur's eye roll was epic and relaxed Eames in a way he wasn't sure he wanted to understand. 

"Maf..." Arthur began.

"Hello, beautiful..." Maf stepped back to allow them entrance. "And you too, Eames."

"My name is Arthur, not Beautiful or Cutie or any other name that might spring into your head," Arthur said, his face the blank that to Eames meant he had his head totally into the game... and somehow managed to make him even more beautiful... at least to Eames. "I'm not here to flirt or joke. I want to know exactly what you can tell us about this... person you told Eames about. That's it."

"But where's the fun in th—"

"I'm not here for fun. I'm here for business." Arthur cut Maf off. "Look. You said you wanted to help Eames, to tell him something he needed to know. Is that still true? If not, you're just wasting my time and your own."

"What's time if you can't waste it?" Maf asked the ceiling dramatically, arms flung out in supplication to some invisible power. "Why have it if you can't treat it like's you want?"

"I'm so fucking tempted to make sure of that," Eames said just loudly enough to be heard. "The you not having it."

"Exactly, 'm not, am I," Maf pointed out sulkily.

Eames tried very hard not to sigh. He didn't mind Maf's mockery, nor his petulance, based as it usually was on Maf's own preferences (or lack of them) but sometimes he would have given a great deal to not have every other word out of the spacer's mouth be some kind of reference to the relationship that had definitely not existed between them.

If Arthur hated being reminded of what he had been on the space-station, so did Eames, and he thought he might well have better reasons for it. Arthur might have seen him as the only one who was any sort of use— Eames had felt like a cheap commodity, emphasis on the cheap. 

He hadn't even been sure, by the end of it, if he really was buying everyone time and space and life, or if he'd just been conned out of his last traces of tenuous reality.

Maf, in a strange way, with his insistence on games, his refusal of anything approximating reality, had been the one to tether him to the disintegrating remains of his sanity. 

_I don't kill people and I don't harm children,_ he'd said on Station Nine. It was what he had told the space-station runner Lukho, as he bargained safety for Dom and Ariadne with the temptation of Yusuf and Arthur's skills, with the certainty of what his holo perm-mod could offer. 

He'd thought those two things were his only points of refusal, the only things he could not, would not, do. He had been wrong, and there were other things, and he hadn't been able to refuse, and he hadn't been able to say 'I can't' because that would have been weakness, and there was Ari to think of, Ari in his position, Ari at the docks without tangible holos to protect her; and he hadn't been able to say 'I won't' because that would have been breaking their demon-bargain, and Dom, grief-mad Dom, would have paid the price for that.

Maf, with his _insistence_ upon fakery, had saved Eames from a self-loathing that had been great enough to make him think at times about opening one of the dock-ports and walking out unshielded.

But Maf had left, worried for Eames though he had undoubtedly been, he had left, and Arthur had discovered the truth of what Eames had been doing, and Eames had given him a truth in return, the bitter choice he lived with each cycle of the station.

_"Do you want to be the one running this fucking place?"_ he had demanded. _"Because that's what you're signing up for, if you take out Lukho. Why the sodding hell do you think I haven't done it yet?"_

And Arthur had agreed, even though it went against everything he believed in, Arthur had agreed, and let it go.

And then there'd been what they'd all ended up calling the Boneyard, the planetoid that Eames's long-since dead still resided on, and then, straight after that, there had been Saito's offer of Seisui for a new haven, and he'd made sure he never really thought about the time on the station again. But with Maf there, offering information in trade to Arthur's playing along, he _had_ to think about it, had to remember it, had to keep it foremost in his mind if only because that was _how_ he knew Maf.

And how Arthur, thankfully, didn't.

"Any chance of getting back to the point?" Arthur asked, dangerously mild. Eames gave him a look which he hoped said he had no clue and he was opting out of it all. Arthur's glare in return suggested that was the best idea he'd had in a while. Maf continued to gaze at the ceiling with the devotion of the drugged or brain-damaged.

The room was silent for a very long five seconds before Arthur turned toward the door, "Wasted time it is then."

"Jaycree! Damn, Eames, he's a toppy little shit, isn't he?" Maf grunted, folding his arms. "Aw'right... aw'right. Business it is... for now. Sit... sit."

Maf waved toward the two rather rickety looking chairs that the room boasted, before settling down on the foot of the bed.

"I don't know what it is y'r after, but," he said, and Eames was almost certain he wasn't putting on an act— or at least, not one that was any more than his too-relaxed posture, "thought I told you all there was?" The last was aimed at Eames, who shrugged, not making any sort of play. This wasn't his time to get in on the barter.

"If it was possible to deal in completely vague and unhelpful, yeah, you did," Arthur agreed. "But that you 'met up with another Psion' means nothing at all. You could be wrong. You could be making it up. You could—"

"Yeah, yeah, lots I could've." Maf waved him into silence. "Huh. Didn't think of it like that way. An' I've not got much more as I can offer."

"We could start with why you think you _did_ meet up with one," Arthur said levelly, and Maf looked interested in something that wasn't flirtation or irritating everyone to death for the first time.

"Had the marks, yeah? Not flashing them nor all. Mostly covered but his cover shifted and I could see 'em at the collar. Black and grey like..." Maf waggled a finger towards Eames.

"That's it?" Eames asked, frowning. "Coulda been a mod. Some people kink that way, Maf."

"Don't I know," Maf laughed. "But why the cover if it was fake?"

"Savin' it mebbe?"

"Could do." Maf shrugged.

"Did you actually talk to this guy, Maf?" Arthur spoke up. "Or just see him?"

Maf gave him an odd look at that. "Same difference?" he said after a pause, and Eames couldn't help it. He laughed.

Arthur blinked. "Same— what—"

"If'n he wasn't, I wasn't asking, if'n he is, what'd I go an' blow his cover for?" Maf demanded.

"Yes, that's lovely, now how about in a language that I speak?" Arthur suggested a bit snappishly. Eames chewed on the inside of his lip, trying not to make any more noise and get that irritable attention focused on him.

"I wasn't goin' t'ask him either way, so what's it matter if I talked to him or not," Maf repeated slowly. Which was, in fact, a pretty good point, so why it made Arthur scowl Eames had no idea.

"Well, of course you weren't going to ask him," Arthur said, more calmly than Eames would have expected, "but you might have heard how he talked. His speech patterns or mention of where he was going or had been. You know, things that might be more helpful than, 'I saw a guy with tattoos on'?"

Maf blinked for a moment, "Oh... yeah... well he weren't talking much, but I heard him orderin's drink. Was pure Onyx, that. But even hearin' ain't much help, yeah? Most on us can do so."

Arthur shrugged, "At least we know that if he is a fake, he's trying to pass. The question is why, one way or another?"

Eames stopped chewing his lip for long enough to manage a strangled "The _fuck_?" and saw that Maf was looking equally bewildered. "Seriously, Arthur? Why would he be _trying to pass_? Fake or not, he was with _spacers_ , he probably thought being alive would be good!"

"Yeah, but if he's a fake why fake passing—" Arthur gestured irritably. "Oh, all hells damn it, now I'm starting to sound like you two. Forget the passing bit. Why hang around spacers at all? Why cover now that he could claim a place to be safe with Saito? Basically, _why_?"

Maf looked mildly guilty. It was probably entirely feigned, but one could never be sure with him. "Sorry," he said. "Thought I was helpin', with th'sayin' t'you 'bout this—" Even his voice sounded hangdog, and he was talking to Eames, not Arthur, which might mean a very small percentage of it was genuine.

Eames had nothing to say, no reassurance to give, only a sinking realization that he'd let himself hope, somewhere carefully concealed even from self-assessment, he'd let himself hope that Maf would have something more to give them than just his original gut feeling.

But the gut feeling might be worth something. Even if it put it right back on them to prove and confirm things— which Eames thought he might in fact be happier with, because he wasn't comfortable with Maf around, and he didn't trust him not to inadvertently let Arthur know just how essential he'd been to Eames, back on the space-station, and if he was being honest, he didn't really want to think too hard about the role he'd played for Maf, no matter how detached and politically sane he tried to be about it.

He had clung to the man's legs and wept. Even knowing it was not him that Maf had really seen, not in his bunk and not on the docks, Eames was still a holo-master for a reason, and the reason was that some of the emotions shown by the holo had to be felt by the wearer in order for their effect (if not precisely what they might be) to be transferred.

And the emotions he had been able to wrap up and use to make himself look and sound as though he was in need (despair, fear, the howling void of unending self-destruction) were not emotions he ever wanted to feel again.

"So we're back where we started," Arthur said flatly. "We need to find him ourselves. Or we'll never know."

"I 'spose... but y've gotten a bitty more'n that," Maf pointed out.

"Your gut instinct?" Arthur sneered at him. "Yeah, I noticed that works well."

"Asked for pretence back then, wasn't usin' it," Maf said calmly. "Why should I've been? Thought I knew I'd got my fakery, so. But this? Man, I weren't lookin'. An' see fakery I did. Fakery an' hidin'. Hidin' _good_ , beautiful, that cover-wearer was. An' yeah. Only as one other hid that good from me before. Can't forget that kind in a hurry. I can't find y'r Psion for y'two, got no tracer nor linkin's. But I can tell ye I'm cree-cert that's what I was seein' there, at the bar."

Arthur straightened up, nodding his acknowledgment of Maf's analysis. "So... if you wanted to hide and didn't have much... Oh. _Oh._ No, never mind. "

Eames just looked at him. "Okay. We done, then?" He wanted to get out, needed to get out, and he was past caring if it showed.

"More than," Arthur nodded. "Maf, it's been an experience, truly."

"Could 've made it more'a one." Maf began, but Arthur was already at the door, gesturing for Eames to follow.

Eames gave Maf a shrug, pitying him not at all, and moved toward the door.

"Eames..."

He stopped and looked back.

"Good luck in all t'come. I mean that." Maf's face was serious. "Everyone's needin' a past, be it for good or bad."

There was nothing to say to that, so Eames just nodded and closed the door behind them and followed Arthur down the ratty hallway.

"You have an idea," Eames broke the silence as they reached the lift.

"I do," Arthur nodded, "but not from Maf. When we left the Gates you knew just where to go. So isn't there a possibility that this guy, if he's trying to stay unnoticed, might do the same? Might wind up in the same place?"

Eames's instinctive reaction was to say _no, no he wouldn't,_ not because he thought it was true, but because of the rest of what Arthur had been saying, before that. 

_We'll find him_ , he had promised Eames, when he'd first been told.

And to Maf, _We need to find him ourselves. Or we'll never know._

If Arthur thought this Psion, or fake, or whatever he might be, was on the space-station, was on Lukho's Station Nine, with its terrible docks and its appalling deals, that would be where they went looking. And if Eames showed for a second, for half a second, how little he wanted to go there, how afraid he still was of what he had become there, then Arthur would agree, would allow him his cowardice, accept his fears, and go alone. 

And that was unacceptable.

So Eames swallowed his reaction and his desired response and the sinking nausea that accompanied all thoughts of the space-station, and said as calmly as he could, "Yeah. That's a— I'd say that's a really good place to start."

~*~


	3. ii. {the desert refused my history}

**ii: {the desert refused my history}**

Flowers were nice, Ariadne thought distantly, retreating to somewhere beyond her rage, to a place where she was still capable of thought. Flowers were nice. Pleasant. Soothing to the eye. A source of tranquility. Even Arthur liked them. 

And right now they gave her something to do with her hands besides put them on shoulders and shaking until some sense came back into the empty head set so arrogantly between said shoulders. 

Because really? The space station? He wanted to go back to the _space-station_?

She jammed the stalk of the anthurium down into the vase, breaking the wisp of fern it was next to. She'd have to replace that or the whole thing would look droopy and lopsided. Rather like that damned space-station —

_Quadrant thirty, Station Nine,_ she could hear Eames's mod-slurred voice say, as it sometimes did in her rare but violent nightmares —

with all its tacked-on bits.

"Seriously, Arthur, do you think that's such a good idea?" Ariadne was very proud of how calm her voice sounded. Then again, she'd had a lot of time to practice sounding calm in far worse situations than this, so perhaps she shouldn't have been quite so proud of herself. Habit, after all, was hardly something which merited praise.

"No, I think it's a really shit idea, as it happens," Arthur said, not calm at all. "But as it also happens, it's all I've got to work with. So it's _the_ idea."

"I wouldn't go as far as calling it an idea, honestly," Ariadne said, still calm. She started pulling out the too closely-packed flowers, having given up on trying to shift them away from each other. They looked even more beautiful, spread out against the glass of the table, rather than contained within the narrow vase.

_Like navigating my way through the stars ahead of me, rather than having to see them far away, kept away from me, trapped up in the sky above my head._

"No?" Arthur sounded almost amused.

"No," Ariadne said, ghosting her scarred hand over the leaves, straightening them where they had been pressed together a little too closely, feeling the half-sharp touch of them where they brushed across the raised ash-and-ink marked skin. "Just— bad. Not a bad idea, not a bad plan, just _bad_. We talked about this. About going back to things, going over things, trying to fix things that got irretrievably shattered too long ago to even remember properly what happened to them. About how it can't be done."

"Sometimes you have to go back before you go forward, Ari." Arthur told her.

_Great, and now Arthur's beginning to sound like some dead ancient philosopher or something._

And he still wasn't listening.

"Yeah. I get that. But this is the stupid pirates-who-aren't base, Arthur. Full of people who kill other people for money or just because they don't like your face."

Arthur snorted with inexplicable amusement at that, ducking his head to hide his face and laughing down at the floor, and she could have thrown the vase at him. And possibly then picked up the table and hurled that at him, too, just to follow it and emphasize her feelings. She settled for glaring at his shaking shoulders until he looked up at her. With, she was frustrated to note, not even a trace of repentance in his expression.

"Yeah," he managed, "that's not really going to be one of the problems, I don't think."

"Maybe not for you," Ariadne said grimly, "but for Eames? Or is he going to ask Yusuf for holo-patches, and go back to hiding who he is?" She saw his amusement flash into equally quick anger, and thought fiercely _Good! Good, you start thinking about what you're doing!_ — but only said aloud, in the detached tones of the General, of the Academe, of Saito's favorite warlord, "It's a reasonable question, Arthur. And one somebody needs to ask, someone who knows and cares about you both. Stars and all hells, you must know he'd do that for you if he thought it would keep you safe."

Arthur nodded slowly, "Maybe that's something we should both do, since we're keeping this on the low down. Our faces are getting to be a bit too well known for undercover work."

Of course he would think of that rather than the danger or of Eames's feelings. 

No, she had to be fair, he _did_ think of Eames's feelings, just not— he never had, not before, not that she knew of, not when it came to gathering information that he thought they needed.

"Or you could, let me think, you could not go?" she said sweetly. "What could possibly be so important, Arthur? If there was a threat, I'd know about it. At least I damn well hope I would, and if there is one and you're being mysterious about it, I really will hit you." _With something even heavier than a table, if I can find it._

Talk of the space-station had left her almost, if not quite, wishing she were back there herself, or at least back in a time when threats of battering the heads of the oblivious men surrounding her— usually with hotplates or wrenches— were not empty and a source of mild amusement, but instead easily achievable and ready to hand when needed.

"Are you under the impression that I'm asking your permission?" Arthur's face was blank, the expression that he usually reserved for people he didn't like or at least didn't trust. It was one that she hadn't seen for a long time and had hoped she'd never see again. "I'm not."

"No," Ariadne said slowly, swallowing down the old feelings of hurt that always came with knowing she would never really be one of them, that while she thought of them as family, it was not how they saw her, and it never would be. "No, I know. I thought you wanted to know my opinion. That's it. I don't think you should go back there. I think it's the worst place anyone can think of. I think being there left us all fucked up in ways even Mal and the whole of Cobol didn't manage. It screwed with our morality and our priorities, and no, okay, of course I wouldn't change where we are now, but. But. I hate that place. I'm always going to. And I don't like the idea of anyone I care about going there at all, never mind _back_ there. I'd say the same to Yusuf, to Dom, even Saito."

"But not to Eames," Arthur said, his voice flat and uninviting to further confidences.

"No," Ariadne said quietly. "Not to Eames."

"Why, because you think he had no morality to screw with?"

Ariadne gave him a look which she hoped conveyed her feeling of pure contempt at that. "Don't be ridiculous," she said shortly. "No. Because when Eames talks about going somewhere, it might not be about a place. It might be about a time. And that's a different argument, and it's one that never goes away. Don't insult my intelligence, Arthur. I'm frightened for Eames all the time, because he got a pretty major choice as to what he can do and who he is taken away from him back when I was still learning letters, and after what he did for Mal I'm _never_ going to stop worrying about his damn time-jack, or him— but it takes something a bit more definite, like this plan of yours, to make me worry about you guys."

That took some of the steam out of him, she could tell, along with a long slow exhale of breath. "This is for Eames, Ari. He needs the answers I might get. Needs them more than he'll admit. I'd go without him if I could, but somehow I don't think that's happening."

She had to agree with that. The only way Arthur would go to that station without Eames was if he tied Eames up and locked him in a closet. Then again, this was Eames. He'd probably gnaw through the ropes, pick the lock and still somehow manage to beat Arthur there anyway. The man was nothing if not determined.

And knowing that made what she had to say next seem like a betrayal, even though it was as much as she was prepared to give in, as much as she could bear to relinquish of her principles. 

Because she might worry over them and their insane, fucked-up ways of prioritizing, and she might love them more dearly than the family who belonged to her by blood, but she knew, as well, that she was right; that to go back to the space-station was something more insidious and worse than a suicide run; that the place was the slow degradation of values and hope and belief.

She could not lend herself to it.

"You'll need a good ship," she said, swallowing past the aching misery that was trapped in her throat. "And things for trade. I can help with that."

Arthur looked at her searchingly, and then nodded, accepting the offer and the words she wasn't saying— because she couldn't bear to.

_But you'll be going on your own. I can't and won't offer to come with you. Even if I could, I wouldn't. No. Worse. More than that. Worse. So much worse. I can, I could, and I still won't. I won't. Not even for you._

"I'm sorry," she said, but it didn't sound like the apology she wanted it to be, not at all.

It sounded like condolences at a funeral.

~*~

It was really quite beautiful, the intricate connections of wire to terminal to chip, especially on the tiny close-up visions that he was currently working with. Beautiful and sexy. Okay, maybe he was strange... yeah, definitely strange... but he still thought that working with something that touched people as intimately as his mods did was damnably sexy. He hadn't managed to convince many people to agree with him, but Yusuf kept trying.

"Yusuf..."

Ari came the closest to understanding it, but he was pretty sure that was due to how strongly she had conjoined with her own mods. 

He had been careful, so very, very careful when he designed them, balancing power with control in all the best and lightest of ways he had ever even dreamed of devising— because no one ever, ever wanted to see another Mal. And he thought he might love Ari just as much as Dom had loved his insanely brilliant wife. He would do anything for her, and therein lay the danger; he would do anything to save her, and therein lay their strength as a partnership— and the dichotomy of it.

"Yusuf..."

And this new development he was working with would just only add to the sexiness that his mods held— form and function combining to form something so perfect that—

"Yusuf!"

It was Eames. Of course it was Eames. It always _was_ Eames, because everyone else chose life and _fucked off_ when he was working.

"How do you _always_ do this to me?" Yusuf moaned, his train of thought completely broken, and looked up from his work with what he hoped was a very effective glare. Unfortunately, he still had the goggles on, and while wires and terminals looked exquisite beneath their faceted magnifications, Eames did not. "Ugh," he added unhappily.

"And 'Ugh' to you too, mate." Eames snorted. "Another minute there and I thought you'd be humping the work bench, so you really should be thanking me. Splinters in sensitive areas are never considered a good thing."

"Bah." Yusuf pulled off the goggles, blinking his eyes to refocus them under normal magnification. "My sexual proclivities aside, why are you even here, Eames? I thought you and Arthur were still off... some place."

It was possible that he got just the tiniest bit tied up in his work, but losing a few semi-cycles (whole cycles!) here and there wasn't that big a problem, was it?

"Yeah, no, we got back a while ago, I came in and said we were back, you said 'Mffff', I said more loudly that _hello_ , we were back, and you just waved a hand at me, so I said even louder 'Hey, Yusuf, you wanker, I'm back and Arthur's back too and we're all going out for dinner' and you said 'Pass me the tweezer-thingy', so I did, and then I asked very precisely if that meant you wanted to come to dinner, then, since we were _back_ , and you started singing to a piece of wire that it was the most beautiful girl in the world, so I left. I did," he added smugly, "bring you a doggie bag. You seem to have eaten it."

"The bag?" Yusuf was sure he'd remember eating a bag.

"No, the food in the bag, although..." Eames made a show of peering around him. "Nope, bag's still on the bench."

"That's... probably good," Yusuf agreed. He wasn't relieved, exactly, since if he had eaten a bag, it obviously hadn't done him any lasting damage, but it was always better to know about these things. "Why?"

"Why didn't you eat the bag? Fuck knows, Yusuf, I don't keep track of what you consider normal."

"No, why are you back?"

"Er," said Eames. "'Cos... we did what we went to do?"

"A sudden feeling of terrible dread has come over me," Yusuf said, and meant it. Eames being vague never meant anything good. It hadn't meant anything good when he disguised himself beneath Yusuf's best holos, it hadn't meant anything good on the Gates-Planet, it hadn't meant anything good on the space-station, or when they first arrived on Seisui, and it certainly meant nothing good now. "And what was it that you went to do, and did, o enigmatic one?"

"Went to see a man who wanted to fuck Arthur, or maybe whip Arthur, I'm not sure but neither happened, so it's all good." Eames picked the tweezer-thingy up off of the work bench and twirled it absently in one hand. "Asked some questions, didn't get much in the way of answers, and came home. Job done."

"Uh-huh." Yusuf waited for more. He was good at waiting. He just thought about other things, letting his mind work over the surface of some never-ending insoluble problem or other, until the other person started talking again, and he could do that for hours at a time if he needed to.

"Yeah, we— seems we might need to go to the space-station," Eames said at last. "Do need to, I mean."

"The space-station," Yusuf said blankly. "Which space-station?"

"Station Nine. _The_ space-station," Eames said, none too patiently. "You must remember it, you spent the same amount of time there as everyone else..."

"Are you taking the piss?" Yusuf demanded. "Is this some giant wind-up to punish me for not coming to dinner and lavishing you with your due amount of attention? Or have you just lost your fucking mind? You can't go back there!"

"Seems we can," Eames's voice was level and deceptively calm. "And are."

"Well, fuck."

"Yeah."

It had to be Arthur's idea, Yusuf decided, because as smart and meticulous as the man was, he never seemed to get the idea that some things were just not a good idea, and some things were beyond that and went into _fuck no_ territory. And this seemed to Yusuf to be as close to _fuck no_ as Arthur had been in a long time.

"But why?"

Eames just sighed, falling back into silence, and prodded the workbench with a very small fine screwdriver, which promptly bent at an angle which ensured Yusuf would never be able to use it again.

"Great, thanks," Yusuf said, taking it away from him. "And I repeat, why?"

Eames looked up from the bench, and his expression was bleak and unhappy and more closed off than Yusuf had seen it since the Boneyard.

"You're really," he said dismally, "really gonna yell. A lot."

Yusuf closed his eyes briefly. _Wonderful. So we're back to 'it's all fucked and I have to kill Mal before we both lose Dom and Arthur' style bad, then._ "Okay," he said calmly. "That'll be fun too. So tell me."

And Eames told him, and he was right.

Yusuf did yell.

He yelled a lot more than he thought even Eames had expected him to.

He yelled because he was furious with Arthur, and Eames, and this unknown possible-Psion, and life, and Saito, and the Gates-Planet, and even with Ariadne, who didn't carry any guilt on her shoulders for any of this, though she felt she should.

_Your people,_ he had said to her, on the Boneyard, the dead planetoid, the mass grave of the Psions, and seen the stark hurt of his words, reflecting out of her dark eyes.

The hurt— and the acknowledgement of the truth.

He knew that what he had told her there, the information he had so callously dumped in one batch of download to her young, untrained, Academe's mind; that the information she had so suddenly received all at once about the Psions and the City-Corps and the Ivory-born and the houses of the dead beyond the Horn Gate, and what they had all been responsible for, would haunt her until her death, and perhaps (for he knew little of what came after death) would stay with her even then. He knew that it was the words he had used which had driven her to carving the raised ash-tat on her palm when they got to Seisui, that it was his words which had set her on the path that had led her to her position as Saito's General, and he felt no guilt for that at all.

Because in moments like this, where he was reminded again of how her people and his people ( _our_ people, he reminded himself, because that was what he and Ari had made of the broken Gates-Planet, a new people, each others' people) and even Arthur's beloved City-Corps, who had only been bought and paid for and done what they were told, had destroyed everything Eames knew and loved, he was furious with himself, too.

"Cold and seven hells, why can people never learn how to leave the past in the past?" Yusuf had to know. "How can we heal, how will we ever heal, if we are forced to keep ripping the scab off?"

And how could Eames settle in to a better future, Yusuf also wanted to know, though he had more sense than to ask such a thing aloud, one where he wasn't alone even if it seemed like it, because Eames had him and Arthur and Ari and damn it, even Dom and Saito. James and Philippa and Yumi thought the sun rose and set with Eames's arrivals and departures. How much more did the man need?

"It's not just that," Eames's voice grew rougher as the Onyx crept back into his tones. "I've got to the now, Yusuf. Then's fading, y'know? But— Psions aren't good alone, neither. You know that. The time-jacks made us that, keep us that."

"No-one's good alone," Yusuf said. "You just described the human condition, not the Psions. Time-jacks have nothing to do with it, I'll tell you that now, and for nothing. What got screwed up for you is you were told— as if it was that easy, that simple!— that Psions are alone unless they are with each other. And you know, or you should know, I hope you have learned so much if nothing else, that it is a lie."

"Yeah," Eames agreed. "I do know. But I'm doubting he does. And if he's thinking he's alone, then he is. You know that's just as true, Yusuf. You know because you were the one who bothered teaching me otherwise."

"I did not teach you," Yusuf said, with a tired and mostly feigned flicker of arrogance. "I _proved fact,_ thank you very much, which is a different and more arduous task."

"Same difference." A bit of amusement quirked at the corner of Eames's mouth, much to Yusuf's relief. If he could get the man to actually laugh, maybe he'd think better of taking this step. "But it's not so much the belief as the reaction. A Psion has a jack and uses it. Simple picture, simple threat."

Ah, yes, there was that. 

"But has he? The Boneyard happened quite a few years ago, Eames, wouldn't we know?" 

"Depends on what he did, big or little. Little stones make little waves. Little waves grow to tsunamis. Just takes time." 

Psion doctrine stated bluntly and darkly. It made Yusuf shiver.

"Everything takes time, and yet time takes everything," he murmured, and Eames's smile turned bitter.

"Yeah. But Psions are the only ones who can steal back from it."

"Setting a thief to catch a thief," Yusuf agreed, for that much at least he understood.

"Like you say. So you see—"

"You have to go. You have to try. I do see." Yusuf sighed. "But Eames. I do not like it. I like it even less than I liked making the patch which sent you to Mal— ah." One look at Eames confirmed his suspicions, and he dropped his head into his hands with a groan. "What in all hells do you need me to conjure out of thin air to send you to almost certain death _this_ time?"

~*~

Dom wanted to unequivocally state that he hated political gatherings. He had shaken hands with so many minor officials and toadying monarchs that he wanted to go have a bath— a long bath with scalding water and disinfecting soap. It wasn't as though their kissing ass was going to get them anything anyway. He and Saito had settled their plans and their rules and things were going to head in that direction in spite of attempted bribery, attempted blackmail or threats.

He almost preferred the threats, because at least they were honest. Or he had preferred them until the time someone had attempted to snatch Philippa. Luckily for him, his daughter was no shrinking violet and had smashed the would-be kidnapper in the balls— with her fist. The man was still writhing on the floor when security had crashed in, Pip and James both doing their best to tie him up with a curtain holder.

Dom still wasn't certain as to whether he should have been more worried by his daughter's penchant for violent solutions, or his son's eagerness to try out 'Interrogation 101, Dad, can I, please?'. In the end he settled for explaining to Philippa that while he was exceptionally proud of her, he'd rather she didn't practice her moves on anyone she knew (like him, please, stars and lords of all, please not on him) and to James that Arthur had been _joking_ about there being an Interrogation 101, and even if it did exist, James hadn't passed the exam, so no.

Sometimes he found himself using exactly the same tones and method to the officials and wrangling politicians— a simplistic explanation, followed by 'No.' Disturbingly, it worked better on them than on James, which Dom supposed he should have expected, but still seemed somehow terribly wrong.

"You look rather pensive, Dominic," Saito's calm voice drifted to Dom from rather closer than he expected, causing him to blink himself back to the present.

"I much prefer leaving all this to Ari. You know that." But still, Dom spared the other man a smile. He and Saito were proving to be a much better team than he had expected they would when the idea had first been put to him. Dom considered himself more of a theoretician than a politician, but he was finding more parallels than he wanted to admit.

"I am aware," Saito tipped his head in acknowledgement, "and very grateful that you are here, just the same. As is the Sebastian monarch, I am sure."

Dom snorted. The Sebastian monarch was twenty years his senior and the woman had more hands than an octopus. He'd found himself cornered more than once since she had arrived, and would have seriously contemplated trying out Philippa's self-defense tactic, if only he'd thought it would work.

"And her gratitude is the only reason you asked me to come, I take it?"

"But of course," Saito agreed. "Self-preservation is one of my strongest attributes." The man who had managed to uphold the pretence of being an AI for over a City-Planet year, and demanded a perm-mod that allowed him to actually function as just that on the gate-ships, seemed to see no irony or dichotomy in his statement.

"Right," Dom said in disbelief.

Saito gave him a disturbingly pleasant smile. "Self-preservation at _home_ ," he elaborated. "You, as yet, have found no-one to whom you will have to explain the placement of certain... marks."

Yes, well, there was that. Dom couldn't really imagine a point in time where the bruises left by the too-friendly pinches the monarch liked to bestow on his sides and ass could have been explained to Mal, and he doubted that Kazue was any different.

On the other hand, she might simply have found it hysterically funny, and neither option was exactly conducive to Saito retaining his dignity.

"There is that." Dom agreed out loud. "Nor am I looking."

Well, not actively at least. There were times when he saw Arthur and Eames together, or Ari and Yusuf, that he felt the weight of his loneliness, but it was usually interrupted by one of the children, or one of the children-caused problems that Kazue simply did not want to deal with, or by Saito himself, who, it seemed, had made it one of his goals to keep Dom from brooding.

Usually he was grateful for it, no matter the motivation.

"I understand." Saito nodded again. "But sometimes we must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us."

"And if I've done that and have it?" Dom could never resist teasing Saito when he became overly philosophical. "Not that it's always enjoyable, I'll grant you, but this was waiting for me, and I'm definitely living it."

"And worlds gaze in astonishment at your good fortune," Saito agreed dryly, though there was an unsettling look in his eyes that showed quite clearly he had seen through Dom's evasive tactics and intended to return to his original topic at some future date— probably and hideously at a far-too-early hour, and before coffee could be consumed.

"Speaking of good fortune, or more of the incredibly lucky they're not dead yet," Dom said, feigning ignorance as the better part of valor, "you do realize that everyone else is now officially planet-side and yet _still_ managed to get out of this, don't you? What happened, are you getting less immune to their tricks over time, rather than more?"

"Perhaps it is just that I prefer your company," Saito gave a half smile. "Or perhaps it is simply that your complaints are less of an annoyance."

Dom had to laugh at that. As much as Arthur loved to dress up, he had no patience for fools, and Eames had even less— and besides which, Eames had no patience whatsoever, even of the politely fake variety involving clenched teeth and monosyllabic responses, for people who annoyed Arthur. Yusuf, who could be simultaneously better and worse than the pair of them, had, at the last gathering he was supposedly presiding over, gone into a vociferously erogenous description of his latest mod theory which had alternately appalled and fascinated the visiting dignitaries.

Given those multiple reasons as to why none of the three of them should ever be allowed to attend these things as any sort of representative whatsoever, it was, as Dom had said earlier, usually Ariadne who attended them, but she had begged off with some excuse tonight. He couldn't begrudge her the time, really, so here he was.

"Damning with faint praise, is it?" Dom chuckled.

"Oh, believe me, that is hardly _faint_ praise," Saito said with some energy, leaving Dom to wonder just how much his misfit former crew had been getting on Saito's nerves in recent ten-days. Considering that some of those days had included a perplexing vid-silence from Eames and an equally strange joint disappearance from him and Arthur both that wasn't on any of the schedules (and while, yes, they occasionally liked to vanish from public view, they tended to give _someone_ prior warning before doing so), and that Dom himself had been fairly annoyed by that, he suspected the answer was 'a lot, really'.

"I take it you have no idea what they're up to either?" he asked with entirely unfeigned sympathy.

"I do not. Have you any theories?"

"No," Dom said honestly, "mostly because I try hard never to have them. Too dangerous and also I might end up being right, finding out, or generally breaking my hard and fast rule of 'don't tell me because I don't want to know'."

"Perhaps, I should attempt to emulate you in that regard." Saito smiled briefly. "It would most probably relieve some of my trepidation."

"It would." Dom had to agree. Then again, he had come to realize that sometimes what he didn't know could, actually, hurt him. "But perhaps a few discreet inquiries wouldn't go amiss?"

"Perhaps not," Saito agreed, moving to rejoin their other guests. "And now, I mingle."

Dom lifted one hand in a farewell salute to the doomed, then looked around the rest of the room. The Sebastian monarch was to his left, so he moved off toward the right, snagging a glass of champagne off of a tray. It was very good champagne too, but wasted on this crowd. He would much rather have taken the whole tray and retreated to the family quarters and shared it with Kazue, and maybe sent word to Arthur and the rest that they were welcome to join them. And maybe, then, asked the right questions to find out exactly what the hell they were plotting. Alas, he still had several hours of placating and pointed comments ahead of him, which might be at an adjacent angle to plots, but was infinitely less interesting to him personally.

"And now, I mingle." Dom grinned to himself, repeating Saito's words.

He could, surely, keep up for a few hours the appearance of a man who was stable enough and intrinsically powerful enough to be a desirable conquest to make?

And as ever, he held his own private litany in his head, as he walked over to the next group of slightly out of place ambassadors. The litany of memories and people that kept him from reaching out and actually strangling the next person who pretended to incomprehension for the sake of just a few more days, or weeks, or months where they didn't have to change one single thing about how they thought or acted.

Or how the laws and structures of their City-Planet might benefit from such a change.

_I could not have loved you more. I am so glad I never loved you less._

Mal. Mal who had once been the ghost at his shoulder, a lost love still present in his everyday living, keeping him closer to the grave than she had been herself. 

Mal who only came to him now in dreams as a presence, though she often occupied his thoughts. 

He could agree with a young and over-eager, slightly nervous representative of the commerce sector as to the benefits of a slight alteration on one of the old taxation schemes, and still hold his last sight of her in his mind, blazing amidst the wires of her auto-da-fe, think of the certainty with which he had left her.

Time no longer passed in nightmare-balances, too swift and too slow in irregularly alternating moments that encapsulated cycle after cycle, day after day, but steadily; moment by moment slipping through his awareness— sometimes under the radar of that awareness, true, but never so strangely, so painfully, that he wanted them lost or forgotten or drowned out by work.

He could function, he was real, he was alive, he had James and Philippa and reality to his hand, and the air no longer tasted of rust and salt, even when it shuddered under the weight of his grief.

_"Goodbye, my dear one. Good night."_

His last words to her. 

The curtain of her doomed certainty, falling between them, closing her mind to him just as his perm-mods, designed for her from love and repaying them both with war, had long since isolated her heart. 

The light of the time-port, illuminating their last lucid moments of marriage and belief and love; the light descending and diminishing, the blaze extinguished.

The coffin of wires, the coffin of heavenly annihilation, her death so profound, so complete, that even the dark he had expected (had _wanted_ ) had fled before it.

He could live with that. He did live with that; and life could be sweet, and he loved its sweetness. Even when he raged, grieved, wept in private, longed for his ghost to return, he could live with that.

And sometimes, when it grew too much to bear, when there was almost too much anger and fear in him not to lash out, not to force those around him to listen, to see— those so-essential people who nevertheless had no idea of what he had done, of what they had _all_ done, who didn't know what the cost had been— and worse, had no idea of how much higher it had almost been, could have been, would have been but for the impossible presence in their lives of the last surviving member of a dead race; at those times when he wanted the politicians and the upper-echelon guests to face up to their impossible inadequacies and accept the help that was being offered to them, again and again, he thought

_Saito._

There was no shame in that. It had, after all, been Mal's last word.

Dom smiled, and chatted of surface pleasantries, and repeated his vows in the depths of his mind, and— mingled. Mingled, and functioned, and knew that he was losing himself less and less with every day, every hour, every time he let the memories come, and used them for fuel, and let them pass.

He was aware, and was made even more aware (and was perhaps a little pleased to be confirmed in his belief) when he met Saito's tight, approving smile in one of their rare moments of silent communication from across the room, that he was doing a superlative job.

~*~

The music drifting down from the ballroom was being expertly played, loud enough to be enjoyed but not loud enough to inhibit pleasant conversation. It was a style that was recent enough to feel comfortable but too old to distract people with remembered lyrics or tunes. In other words it was perfect and bland and just a bit boring and Arthur was more than thrilled that Dom was the one enjoying it rather than him. Annoyed as he was with Ariadne, he imagined that she must be too, as the one on whose shoulders such things usually rested.

"If there were such a thing as beige music, that's it." Arthur shook his head as he entered the suite that he and Eames shared.

"It's colorless, tasteless and odorless... rather like tofu," Eames commented from the sofa he was draped over in a boneless sprawl. "And hello, darling."

"Tofu does taste of things," Arthur protested vaguely, feeling that someone should stand up for a substance that actually possessed useful qualities. "Like, um."

"What you put it with. In. Whatever."

"Yes," Arthur agreed dispiritedly, his boredom quotient increasing just at the thought of tofu as an actual presence in his life, and went and sat heavily on Eames's shins as a sort of general greeting-cum-disagreement-with-everything. "How's Yusuf?"

"Wet hen. You know. Mad. At me. World. Things. Worrying. Being Yusuf-ish." Eames tugged at him until he was equally sprawled and vaguely more comfortable, and palpably registered his protest from the amount of effort Arthur had decided should be put into the process, because Arthur was not feeling in anyway yielding. "Ah, and I take it our beautiful General is not in the mood for compromise this evening." 

It wasn't a question.

"She arranged flowers at me." Arthur gestured, vaguely. "With clippers and... things."

"Ah..." Eames's comment was as bland and non-committal as the music they could still hear drifting in. 

"Yeah, exactly," Arthur replied, tensely. He wished he could stop there, but there was no point in keeping the rest from Eames. "She'll give us a ship."

"And that's all." Eames guessed.

"And that's all."

"Can't blame her for that," Eames said. "She got shafted worse'n any of us back at the station. Stuck it out, good for her, but— she couldn't do anything. Makes it worse for her to think about."

" _None_ of us could do anything," Arthur pointed out tightly, in no mood to be soothed over Ariadne's intransigence. He felt Eames sigh. It ran through him, under him, was part of him. He even agreed with it, for the main part, but the frustration of earlier was still running too hard in his blood for one little deep exhalation to bring him out of his dark mood.

Eames was still talking.

"Shouldn't have been _able_ to, no, true enough, except we did, and we couldn't about the station itself, no. But we could do more than fix scrap metal in return for living space. Even Dom, bad as he was then, he could do something useful. You've got to let her hate that time, or she'll stop thinking she can fight it."

Arthur thought about Ariadne, stuck in her little workshop, grumbling about how 'all I do is fix stupid junk to make more stupid junk', thought about the day Yusuf and his scrappy yet all-purpose temp-mods made it rain at everyone, thought then about the day Yusuf had managed to make everything taste like headache, and felt a little more forgiving. "Yeah. I get that, mostly. I do, Eames, honestly. But does she have to fight us?"

"Well, yeah. 'Cos we want to go back there," Eames said simply, and yeah, when he put it like that, Arthur could sort of see why Ariadne was so upset by the idea. But she still didn't have the right—

"She asked me if I was going to make you wear holos," Arthur said, and by giving the words sound, felt abruptly even more annoyed and miserable than he had when Ariadne had not-quite-asked him if that was what he intended.

" _Make_ me?" Eames had the gall to sound amused. "Since when do you— oh no, don't you dare, you've never asked me to do anything that I—"

"Yeah, but you _do_ , though," Arthur pointed out. "If I asked you to, you would. _And_ you wouldn't want to." He felt sick.

"Not quite," Eames said, infuriatingly calm. "I don't do a fucking thing _just_ because you want it, you know that. If it makes more sense to wear 'em, though? Yeah, course I will, 's got nothing to do with whether you ask for it or not."

"I suppose." But Arthur felt neither convincing nor convinced. "I don't know, Eames. Maybe I should just go by myself. See what I can pick up and then if I do find anything concrete we can work from—"

"No."

"— that. What do you mean, no?"

"I mean no, Arthur. It's a simple enough word."

"Look, it's obvious that it's not safe—" Arthur started, and realized, too late, what an intensely stupid choice of words he had just made, as Eames's previously accommodating sprawl turned into a cage of iron-tense muscle and bone, with Arthur locked quite absolutely and definitively on the outside of his hard anger.

"And you going off to find out about a Psion on your own is so, so secure—"

"That's not what I _meant_ —" Arthur, hopeless as ever at reassurance, found himself arguing instead.

"Yeah, go on, teach me, _Corps-man_ , teach me how you go a-hunting—"

"Will you shut the _fuck_ up!" Arthur twisted to the side and glared down at Eames, not angry with him as much as at himself, but angry all the same. He hadn't meant to shout any more than he'd meant to use the stupid word 'safe', but while he had been wrong the first time, he was exactly right the second, as Eames clamped his mouth shut in a white line over his teeth, and glared right back. "You hated it there worse than Ari did, and I know that. So why can't I give you the allowance you're giving her?"

"Because I'm not Ari," Eames said, after a long silence. His eyelids fluttered closed, but not in defeat, never in defeat— Arthur, even terrified out of his calm and into a weird false rage, knew better than that. "We promised to wake up together, Arthur. I can't do that if you're not here. And we never made those promises to her. Neither of us, not even you in the Onyx-cycles you had with her, made those promises to her."

"You can't wake up with me if you're dead, either," Arthur said hopelessly.

"I told you once your logic was cracked right down the middle," Eames reminded him. "It hasn't mended one scrap, you know."

Arthur leant sideways and thumped his head into Eames's shoulder. "Sorry."

"Fucking right you should be," Eames said. "My choice too, remember. So as to make it _us_."

"I keep forgetting to remember that," Arthur said nonsensically, and thought Eames could probably feel the heat of his embarrassment right through both their clothing.

"And there was me, thinking I was the one with forgetting rights," Eames grumbled, but he'd stopped feeling uncomfortably like the outside of a prison door as Arthur leant on him, and after a bit, one of his hands came up and rubbed awkwardly at the back of Arthur's neck.

Lust and kindness and even love, Eames could show— affection was almost impossible for him, and Arthur was never, even in the middle of feeling like a complete idiot, unconscious of the effort when it was made, nor of the reality of the feelings that lay behind those small and telling gestures.

"I want to wake up with you and you with me..."Arthur voiced the promise against the warmth of Eames's neck. "That hasn't changed. Will never change."

"Nor for me," Eames agreed, rubbing his face against the top of Arthur's head where it lay against him.

There was silence between them then, thoughtful and warm, although Arthur knew it wouldn't last long. There were too many things they needed to take care of, and too many things they needed to plan.

It was bare moments later that Eames spoke, "So... what kind of ship?"

"Would it be too blatant to ask for the Mandell, do you think?"

"She can piss for it if she thinks it's hers to keep," Eames snorted. "Might as well be our ship. I sorted it and you jumped us when we left."

"There is that." Arthur agreed.

"Yusuf wasn't as bad," Eames said after a bit. "Worried, mad, but not—"

"Not the General," Arthur said bitterly, not moving from where he lay. Eames rubbed the back of his neck again, less tentative this time and more professional, his fingers digging in a little to the tense muscles that overlaid Arthur's spine. 

Arthur hissed, and Eames pushed at his resistance with fingers that almost jabbed, and Arthur dropped his head even further, and let himself be worked on, and felt himself go ridiculously limp, the pain-pleasure of all the myriad of little knots being undone singing through his nerves like a high note in glass. He wondered when he would shatter.

He knew that if and when he did, those same hands would put him back together with never a crack to be seen or even imaginable.

"No, he never is," Eames agreed, his fingers never stopping their assault on the thin, tight pain that felt it was the only thing holding the layer over Arthur's back in one piece; softening the silk-knot stitching-weave layers of shuddering flesh with nothing but persistence and warmth and a deeper, duller onslaught on impossibly brittle-held tendons and muscles; and Arthur let him, let him and wanted him to continue, knowing that he was being manipulated in every way, and not caring, focusing only upon breathing deeply and slowly and wonderfully, unbelievably (and yet no, no disbelief, this was Eames, who would become whatever he needed as soon as it was even thought of) feeling his twisting, taut misery begin to dissolve. 

He stayed silent, and simply listened, wondering if that rich, Onyx-underlaid voice could do the same to his tangled mind as it was doing to his knotted back.

"Being the General's lover must be worse, sometimes," Eames said thoughtfully, "but yeah, no, he's still Yusuf. He's... There's a new temp-mod he's working on, Arthur. And we had a chat about what we might need when we go to the station, and, well, he thinks— he thinks that it might, maybe it could work on you."

Those words were almost enough to undo all the hard work that Eames had put into Arthur's back, cold steel and tenseness grabbing him at once. "I don't want to be fixed," he said flatly. "I don't ever want to not see you."

"Hey. It's Yusuf we're talking about here, yeah, not Dom. Temp-mod, Arthur, a temp-mod you can power down whenever you choose. Think you could work with that?"

"Why would we need it?" Arthur asked. "Why would I ever need to not see you as you are?"

"It's not just me though, is it?" Eames asked. "A whole station full of people— Onyx-runners and spacers and bad-faith traders and everyone, everyone that you have to interact with, you have to react to as if they were wearing their born-face. There's other things you'd need to keep track of, when we go there, more important things, stuff that's so much more than you needing to worry about whether you gripped a mod's hand or the mod-user's hand. And seeing someone else... someone like me—"

"There is no one like you, Eames," Arthur tried for a joke but it came out flat. Tasteless. _Tofu joke._ "But, yeah, I get what you mean."

"So you'll try it?" Eames wasn't pushing. He never did. But he sounded— hopeful. And that on its own was rare enough these days for Arthur to simply concede.

"Yeah, of course I will," he said, and kissed Eames over the too-tight tendons in his neck, breathing in the feel of the strong pulse under them. _One day I won't have this. Because of death, or Yusuf, there will come a day when I don't get to have this._ "What harm is there in trying?"

He knew by the relieved little exhale of held breath, moving his hair apart just enough for his scalp to almost crawl, that he'd made the right choice, given the right answer.

Then why did it feel as though he'd started to build a pyre?

_Fire and ash,_ he thought. _The Boneyard_.

"We'll talk to Yusuf in the morning," he said, registering dimly that the music had still failed to give them any peace from its far away beige-tofu droning below. 

"Okay," Eames said, and it was agreement, it was relief, it was an acquiescence to needed security, and yet, and yet —

Arthur could not shake the feeling that they'd made their first mistake.

He buried it in kissing Eames, deliberately covering each pulse point, each sensitive area of neck and ear and shoulder and thin skin over hard bone and harder muscle, instead. He buried it in outlining the names of the dead with his tongue, and only once, just before Eames finally grew tired of being tormented and rolled him over on the deep couch, did he think —

_Which one of us will wear the name, after this? Or have we even met the one who will, as yet?_

He did not need to think at all, after that. Only to feel, and Eames, as he always had, made it easy to feel.

And later— a little later, they would keep their promise, and wake up together, and that— that was enough, that was real, that was truth, and Arthur could live with that truth for as long as he could hold onto it; he would tie it to himself with fine wires, tightly enough to embed those bonds to his bones; he would tear it out of the future's razor-edged veils with clawed hands and bloody teeth, if he had to.

That one truth was the only religion he admitted to, after all.

~*~

"Well, it's very... interesting?" Yusuf ventured. "Or maybe _unique_ is the term."

He was circling the little dining table in their suite, looking at the odd flower arrangement that held place of honor in its center.

"I've certainly never seen another quite like it," Yusuf said. His lip twitched because, really, it looked rather like one of James's creations— all bent leaves and flowers held up with wire and florist's tape.

"Fuck you," Ariadne said pithily.

"Yes, indeed, but if you would be very kind and not use... that... thing to do so, I would appreciate the kindness," Yusuf pointed out, and smirked.

Ariadne glared at him. Yusuf smiled back at her benignly, and the room suddenly felt very crowded indeed, as Ariadne convinced it that it had a lot more carbon dioxide and the walls were much closer together. Yusuf waved it away, despite what he could see and feel, and chuckled.

"Designed it, chick. Can't hurt the designer."

Ariadne actually _growled_. "Oh, I know! Nor Dom, who gets fascinated. Nor Arthur, who can't see or feel it. Nor Saito, who ignores it. But Eames I could—"

Yusuf, with a speed born of experience rather than ability, grabbed her around her small waist with both his arms, and reeled her in, struggling. "Not today, I think," he said evenly.

"But it would keep him from doing this stupid—" Ari interrupted herself. "He did tell you about the scheme the two of them have cooked up, didn't he?"

"He did." Yusuf nodded slowly. 

"That's it? That's all you have to say?" 

"Do I actually have to say that I think it's a stupid idea? Or can we just accept it as a given?"

"Right," Ari nodded. "How can they even think of going back to that place?"

"Hm." Yusuf paused, wondering how best to say this. "I think that for them there are monsters under the bed that still include Eames," he said at last, carefully.

"Oh _seven hells_!" Ariadne spun around in his arms and gripped his shoulders, too obviously terrified to be feigning stupidity or ignorance. "But you said the time-port couldn't be changed, you said it couldn't be shut down, Yusuf, tell me they're not rushing after some miracle cure that stops him being what he is, fuck, I have to go talk to them, I—"

"Include," Yusuf repeated, still holding onto her. "Include, Ariadne."

"Inc—" Ari stopped. "Oh stars and lights and God of old. They think there's another."

"They do."

"They're going to find him— her? Can it be a her, could it—"

"Yes, but he'll still call her his brother," Yusuf said, "so it is probably not a relevant—"

"Well then, him. I suppose. And then—"

"And then it is none of our business. I will help with a mod Eames has asked for— no, chick, I can't and won't tell you until we know it works, you know me better than to ask before you try— and you will, I think, give them a ship you promised."

"To go to the space-station," Ari said, and her voice shook. "They'll do this on the space-station."

"On the space station first, and then I don't know. Nor will we, I think, ever know. Until it is over in some way."

"You don't think they'll tell us?" Ariadne's face was the picture of puzzlement. "But they always tell us."

"Perhaps not this time," Yusuf put a sympathetic arm around her shoulder. "I don't want them to go any more than you do, but they are going. And I'm sure Arthur will tell us, when he is able."

"Arthur," Ariadne said, and he was reminded all over again of why he loved her, as she came out from under his arm, and took his hands in hers. "Arthur will tell us? Not Eames?"

And Yusuf repeated, somewhat shakily, "No, I think not this time," and shook his head, and kept shaking it, and when Ariadne dropped his hands so that she could wrap her arms around him, he felt nothing but relief that here, for once, when he needed her, was the one person in any universe who could understand both his fear and his perhaps-unnecessary grief and his strange conviction that he was doing both the best he could and the entirely wrong thing, all at once.

"I love you," she said, quiet and clear. "I wish that could help, right now."

Yusuf sighed, and let her take a little of his weight.

"It doesn't help with what I've agreed to, no," he said honestly. "But it makes me feel infinitely less so— very— appalling— a person."

And Ariadne put her hands up to cup his face, with both her palms, the scar-and-ash mangled one and the whole one, diverging textures against his skin, petering out over his beard into a mere brushstroke of warmth, and leant in and kissed him.

"You're the centre of my labyrinth," she said. "The perfect centre of the perfect round. The rose in the heart of my maze."

"And you are my people," said Yusuf, for he knew it had become true, and there was nothing he loved to tell her more, nor that she loved to hear.

Ariadne smiled, the little private smile that was for him and only for him, and kissed him again. "For luck," she said. "Before I lose you to your work."

Yusuf laughed. "But I need more luck than that," he pointed out, and picked her up, his Ariadne, not the General nor the Academe, but Ariadne, his Ari, his own private illusion-mod that no-one else would ever be allowed to see or feel, Ari who was protesting his actions even as her legs wrapped around his waist; and took her through from the little living-room, past the thickly-embroidered screen-walls, and into their bedroom.

He didn't stop kissing her as he walked across the floor, nor as he laid her down on the bed, nor as they worked impatiently against buttons and buckles and leather, and were at last illuminated and clothed only by the lights of her mods and the glow of his strapped control-gauntlet, telling him the timers of every piece he had worked on.

He never stopped, not until all her naked skin was close to his, and his to hers; and the choice of touch was theirs to make in utter freedom; and it was finally their world, and no-one else's; their world, where they at once controlled thousands— and relinquished them to the safety of their designs and the infallibility of their skills— with each touch and breath and caress they trusted they had time for.

_We steal time, and time steals from us,_ , Yusuf thought, and shivered.

And yet —

_There is only time. You move through it._

The curse had been meant for Eames's ears alone. A curse, a warning, a benediction, even, from the dead and to the dead. But it applied to the rest of them just as well.

"But oh," he murmured against the curve of Ariadne's hip, drawing his tongue slowly down the line between her thigh and the Venus mound, along that tiny shallow crease where even she could sometimes taste of salt and sweat and so very much of herself, "oh, we will, Ari, I promise we _will_ make that movement run for _us_."

And when he raised his head once more, to kiss her, and aligned their bodies to the teasing, sweat-slick point where she could no longer resist her own desires, and rolled them both over so that she could sit astride him, they laughed; and when after what felt like days of rolling delirium, wave after wave of fog and haze and the mad flickering shapes of the _ignis fatui_ that danced behind his closing eyes; when after each grasped-for and agonizingly-close moment had peaked, and retreated, and he had half-wailed in desperation; when she had at last cried out, sharp and sweet and strangely delighted, and he had followed her, his voice a deep hoarse groan of relief and release and gasping adrenaline; when they lay still at last, her strong legs clamped on either side of his, her hair, shorter than it used to be, but still down from all its intricate ties for once and the long bangs sweeping across his chest as her head bowed in the last relinquishment of pure physical pleasure, little shivers and twitches still running through her as her body came down from its ultimate high, he was the one who said, " _Mine._ "

and she, laughing, breathless, resting on his chest as her heartbeat slowed to match his, retorted —

" _Ours._ "

Yusuf smiled, and pulled her closer, and let them both drift into a kind of hypnotic somnolence, where it was not quite sleep and not quite waking, but was still movement among and between and above and below those things.

And he thought— _I have this, what man needs more?_

And then he was reminded of how very much more indeed two men needed that was not this dreaming-dear delight, and slid himself out from under Ariadne's small, pliant body, dressing in his oldest protective leather, and preparing to go out to his workshop, in order to make his newest, and most precious, and most beautiful creation into something that might just maybe save his friends' lives.

She only sighed a little in her sleep, her body registering his departure even though her still-drowsy-mind accepted it without fear or concern or question, the feathered ends of her hair fanning out across the pillows as she shifted and curled and stretched into the centre and the lingering warmth of both their bodies, and Yusuf could only smile, and look at her for a little while, and wonder at his good fortune.

And when he summoned up the stamina to look away, and thought more clearly about just what he was doing, and was less inclined to curl back up in bed with his lover, and more inclined to think about risks to himself, he went into the little tall, thin, metal cupboard that was bolted to the two stone flags in the corner of his room, and took out a gun that he had also modified, a very long time ago, a gun for which the brace and its contained mod had lain dormant on his arm for a long, long time.

_Since the space-station_ his conscience reminded him. _And you removed it enough times that no-one thinks you rely on it._

The other leather half-gauntlet, the one that kept the time-decay of _others'_ mods flickering in constant reminder, he had never removed and never would.

People tended to think that the permanently-worn one was the dangerous one, that the one they saw every day with all its unknown quantities might one day be a threat; that it was possibly linked to Eames's time-port, though they never actually got up the courage to ask him. It was not. It was the safest thing anyone who used his temp-mods would ever see, because it meant that whatever they were wearing was still functioning.

Yusuf, now activating both gun and arm-gauntlet, could not help but smile at their idiocy.

He went back to his workshop armed, and determined, and, as he always was, even in the worst of times, he was utterly himself.

Although as he walked, there were times when he thought of Ariadne, shifting and curling toward and into the warmth that he had left in their bed, and his walk became, just slightly, the swagger of a justly proud man.

He knew that when she woke, she would move to the same rhythm and beat, and he grinned to himself.

People looked at his grin, and the gauntlet, and avoided him for the rest of the day, after that.

Yusuf found the solitude a remarkable help.

~*~


	4. iii. {the relics of our former life}

**iii. {the relics of our former life}**

In the normal course of things, if someone were to describe Arthur, several words usually came into play. Brilliant, yes, knowledgeable, tenacious, also yes, prickly as a cactus, easily annoyed and snappish, without a doubt. With Eames you usually heard things like observant, full of humor and laid back, or even kind and friendly in a vague way.

Somehow they must have entered a personality shifting space warp without noticing because at the moment, it was all that Eames could do to hold his temper while Arthur appeared to be nothing but deferential and accommodating.

Eames wasn't sure if it was more annoying that he felt snappish and out-of-sorts with worry, or that Arthur had recognized what was going on and was doing his best to appease him.

Either way, it just made Eames want to kick something.

Arthur had been nothing but patient with Yusuf while he fitted on the temp-mod— a variation on the strange little replay-holo he and Saito had once designed together so that Arthur could at least see a reflection of what Eames's appearance was. The initial interaction with Arthur's fused perm-mod had been, to put it _mildly_ , unpleasant, for Yusuf and Arthur both, and it had been Eames who had lost his temper, begun to say unforgivable things about Yusuf and his skills and his motivations— and been thrown out of Yusuf's workshop for his pains.

He thought he might have been a bit less appalling about the whole thing if it hadn't been for the fact he recognized Yusuf's mod-gauntlet— and the gun that went with it. It had been used on him too many times, as Yusuf worked desperately against time to try and make his time-port functional, and the sight of it was not something that evoked anything but a low-level, simmering panic, a constant feeling of ratcheted battle-readiness ( _fight or flight_ , yes, he could acknowledge it for what it was without too much self-denigration).

Most people were curious as to why such a well-known designer had no perm-mod of his own. The truth was that Yusuf had long since developed a slow-decay mod that could go for over a year without needing to be worked on or changed, could be powered down as easily as any other mod, whether temporary or permanent, and would only ever work for one man and through one instrument.

The deadly little weapon that looked enough like a gun that no-one could or would question Yusuf's having it. The weapon that was always, always locked away, even in the safety of Seisui, unless it was actually in Yusuf's hand.

Arthur would wear the slow-decay temp-mod, would control whether its power was operational or not, and he would see the holos when he chose to. And it would only ever work for him.

Unless Yusuf decided that it _shouldn't_ work, any more.

And Eames was unsure, for the first time ever in their long friendship, if he really did trust Yusuf that much. 

Oh, if it had been him the mod was being designed for, he who had to put all his faith in Yusuf's clever fingers and brilliant mind, he would have trusted implicitly in all of it— the friendship, the skill, the motivation— he would never even have thought of questioning one of those, never mind all. 

But this time, he wouldn't be the one so completely in Yusuf's hands. And Eames was learning that when it was someone he loved, and not himself, he could be intensely and unforgivably irrational.

"All the supplies are here and should be loaded up in another two hours," Arthur said, unnecessarily. 

"Right." Eames nodded. Of course it would be, as if Arthur would have incompetence on his team at any level.

"Can you... Do you want to see anyone before we leave?" It was a simple question, with no simple answers.

Did he want to see anyone?

There was no easy answer to that.

"Want to, yeah," he said at last. "Should? I'm thinking that's a no. The kids'll just show they're part psychic again and ask exactly the wrong question, I— no, to be honest I _don't_ want to see Ari, though that's unfair, I really doubt Yusuf wants to see me right now, Saito'll take one look at me and put me under arrest, and Dom—"

That was the hard one. They had all lied to Dom, and many times; under the guise of protecting him or wanting the best for him or even just as lies of omission that they really were going to tell him about later. This was a bit more, though. Eames wasn't worried by much when it came to Arthur and promises he'd made, but his loyalty to Dom was equally as strong a claim as anything he and Arthur might have said to one another, and it was just as deeply felt and meant— on both sides.

And if Dom told Arthur the same things that Ariadne had— that it was a bad idea, that they shouldn't do this, that they should wait for information to come to them, not head off into almost certain battle-zones looking for what might well prove to be a chimera— 

It wasn't that Eames didn't know which path Arthur would choose. It was that he thought this one time, there shouldn't have to be a choice for him to make.

"Definitely no." Eames shrugged.

"Okay." Arthur nodded his agreement. "Food or sleep or..."

"I think we'll have a pass on the _or_ for the moment," Eames gave him a weak smile. It wasn't that sex with Arthur would have been unwelcome, it never was. But right now he needed to hold on to this feeling, this internal rage. If he didn't, he wasn't sure he'd be able to do what he needed to do, which was _get on the bloody ship._ "Let's just get aboard and run the final checks so we can leave as soon as we're loaded."

"We can absolutely do that."

Eames had never been given a reason to learn to pilot a craft properly. Oh, he could interface with them and go through the basics, but when it came to shipping out he was either cargo waiting to time-jump, or time-jumping and hoping to _land_ as cargo, and hopefully in the right craft with the right people. So watching Arthur go through his walk-around, checking everything methodically from the list that was so neatly and precisely detailed and _all kept in his mind_ , was a kind of joy in itself.

What should have been boring became an art-form, what should have been pure tedium was instead a joy and a privilege to observe. Arthur, lost to his mastery and his skills, was more the impossible chimera than anything Ariadne could have warned them of— and yet he was real.

He must have known that Eames was watching him, but it didn't seem to disturb him or make him feel that he had to explain things or involve Eames in any way. He simply went along his mental list, serene and sure-moving and beautifully, wonderfully absorbed in his work.

If any tiny bit of knowledge or meticulous bit of engineering perfection could bring them through this, Eames knew that Arthur had done his best to ensure it. That was never anything he ever had doubted or would doubt. Information was Arthur's forte, he needed it like Eames needed to observe. And maybe that was what made them a good team— the interior of knowledge and the exterior of observation. And maybe, just maybe, that was what would bring them back home.

 _We're running on blind faith and impossible skill,_ he thought, and laughed quietly to himself. _Well, and why not, then? It's never let us down before..._

~*~

The trip on the Mandell was remarkably stress free, or would have been had their destination been any place other than Station Nine. As it was, the trip only conjured up memories, most of them not the good kind. The deck plates where he and Arthur had sagged against each other, exhausted from their escape and Yusuf's jarring, clumsy repair-work, covered in blood, most of it not their own. Psion and City Corps, soldiers both, side by side in desperate flight, the two of them bound even then, before they recognized it. The spot where he'd come back after Mal's final death, Arthur refusing to look at him because he hadn't believed him real. The same spot they'd fallen when Arthur finally believed and had flung himself into Eames's arms, knocking them down with the force of it. The bunk where Dom had sat, much like Eames was now, remembering and hating and dreading the future. Too much. The stress was too much.

"We should sleep while we can," Arthur had told him. "May not get much once we arrive."

Which was true. They'd be too busy watching their backs to relax for sleep.

Station Nine. The former mapping station where what Ariadne liked to call 'the pirates who aren't' lived out their unorthodox lives, in as close a facsimile as they could manage to a planet-side existence. 

Station Nine, which had saved Eames's life more than once, and demanded a price of him each time that was too high for him to pay or think of with any sort of equanimity. 

The second time he had gone there, it had been easier to bear, because it had not only been his life, but others' too, and no matter how often during those turnings of the station's orbit, that the price had been asked and re-asked of him, no matter how many times it became a choice between life and his own scruples and the limits of what he could stand, he could endure it, because it wasn't just for him.

But the first time —

The first time, he hadn't even known what he was paying. He hadn't known, as he recovered from psychic and physical wounds both, that everything he knew and loved was dying, was being obliterated from memory and time and reality; that the price he was paying for his own survival was the loss of everything he had been living for.

He and Arthur both should have been on the Boneyard. He still didn't know why Arthur hadn't been there or known about it— there were some things, still, that neither of them had the right to ask each other— but he had been on Station Nine, learning to be a holo-master rather than simply using the mod as another weapon.

And he had survived.

Now the two of them were looking for someone else who should have been there, someone else who had escaped the Psions' destruction, and Eames still didn't know whether or not he wanted it to be real, whether he wanted there to be someone else, or whether he felt better, safer, _stronger_ , with only himself to accuse and judge for having escaped.

An arm wrapped sleepily around his waist, and Arthur's voice drifted up to him from where it was muffled against his hipbone. "Can't sleep?"

"Not really."

"Can fix that." Arthur offered. "Wouldn't be a hardship at all."

Eames snorted a laugh, "Wouldn't, would it?"

"Nah. I'm a giving kind of guy. Or taking. 'M flexible." The final words were punctuated with teeth, nibbling with affection.

"Yes, you are," Eames ran his fingers through Arthur's sleep rumpled hair, "but I don't think even that would make me sleep right now."

"Yusuf gave me some of the sleep-syringes," Arthur said, and his body moved in a sort of questioning shrug.

"The ones we used on Dom?" Too late, Eames realized just how much like an accusation that sounded. He was nowhere near as bad off as Dom had been, was he?

 _No,_ said the small voice of common sense at the back of his mind, the one he always listened to, because it sounded like every set of orders he'd ever been given, _but you will be, if you don't shut yourself down now._

"New and improved, actually," Arthur said, a little too calm, but not offended. Just— wary.

"Huh. Okay."

He felt Arthur blink, hard, eyelashes almost scraping over his skin with the force of it, and laughed unwillingly.

"Yes, you are that difficult," Arthur said in response to his laughter, "and shut up. I was just surprised. You gave in."

"You didn't need to even try to persuade me," Eames pointed out, and Arthur hit him in the ribs, a kind of vague punctuation of his demand for silence. "Mmff. Ow. Sadist. All right, shutting up."

Arthur stretched, unwrapped himself from Eames and the blankets and the bunk, and padded over to the med storage cabinet, keying in the lock code. "Where do you want it?" 

"Anywhere but the arse," Eames made a face. "I save that for more pleasant intrusions."

Arthur just shook his head, checked the dosage and set the syringe against Eames's neck.

"Ow!" Eames frowned as the injection pinched. "Really, darling, where have you been picking up these tendencies?"

"Self-taught in self defense," Arthur claimed. "I'm planning on asking Yusuf for a few of these to use on James and Pip the next time they have too much sugar."

Eames laughed, but he was sure that Arthur could tell that his humor was strained— more reason to take the offered sleep. "I love a man with a plan."

"That explains way too much," Arthur muttered, and shoved at Eames until he was back in whatever position Arthur had previously decided was optimal for sleeping mostly-on-top-of. It wasn't particularly comfortable, but whatever the 'new and improved' sedative was, Eames was already past caring very much. 

And there was warmth, trapped between him and Arthur, feeding itself and him from their bodies, and Arthur had got _sneaky_ about that, at some point when Eames hadn't been watching for it, making the incremental spaces between them both into a kind of strange mutual protection, instead of a barrier.

Eames, with a merciless and comfortless clarity, knew that this was something for which he would kill to preserve, even if only as a memory.

"If I wake up with a neck crick, I'll kill you," he mumbled, in lieu of trying to express that cold emotion.

"Yeah, yeah," Arthur said scathingly, his words caught in those tiny warm spaces, there to stay, "You'll try."

"Fucking succeed," Eames stated around a yawn, and was out.

~*~

The good thing about sleep-syringes, Eames decided when he woke, was that they guaranteed both a lack of dreaming and the immutable fact that time would pass and you didn't have to endure it. In some ways, they were like using the time-jacks, but with added improvement to the psyche when they wore off.

So not only was he aware of where he was and had been, he felt rested and the feeling of dread he'd felt like a visible cloud since they had lifted off seemed to have diminished somewhat. It was now more like a manageable haze than anything else.

He wondered just what Yusuf had put in those syringes and if that was what was making him feel less edgy, or if it was the sleep itself.

"Good morning, Princess," Arthur's voice whispered mockingly in his ear. "Sleep well? No cricks?"

"Don't know yet," Eames yawned, unconcerned as to mockery or the lack of it. "There's a great idiot pinning me to the bunk."

"'S more comfortable this way."

"For you, maybe," Eames complained, but wrapped his arms just a bit tighter around Arthur. "Slept pretty well though. Thanks for that."

"I have my moments of inspiration," Arthur agreed. "Are you going to let me move now, since it's such an onerous task being slept on?"

"Eh?" That was just a bit too much for Eames with remnants of sedative still running through him.

"If you want me to get off you," Arthur said slowly, "you're going to have to let go enough so that I. Can. Move."

Eames pretended to think about it for just long enough that Arthur started to relax out of pure irritation, and then unwrapped his arms and pushed himself upright in the same movement, leaving Arthur sprawled facedown and off-balance on the hard bunk.

"Yes," Eames said.

Arthur just sighed, the sound of the terminally put-upon, and turned his head to the side. "You're six. You are actually six. And that means I am a terrible terrible pervert who belongs in jail."

Eames stared at him. "Er," he said.

"Make coffee. Be useful," Arthur commanded with a wave of his hand.

"It's the crystallized shit," Eames warned him.

"What, for old times' sake?" Arthur's glare turned genuine. "Couldn't you have made sure we had something decent?"

"No, Lord High Everything Else, I couldn't," Eames said, trying not to laugh. Caffeine-deprived Arthur was something he had learnt to his cost needed to be taken seriously, unless he wanted to find himself damaged in some small yet deeply unpleasant and unexpected way. "It gets that weird mould, even vac-packed, remember?"

Arthur groaned. "Yeah. Yeah, do I ever remember. Fuck. Well, make that, then."

"Weird mould? Well, if you ins— right, yes, coffee approximation, I'm making it, right now."

Because Arthur could wield a pillow almost as well as he could a blaster and the results could be nearly as deadly. He was also good with knives, lamps, and on one never-to-be-forgotten instance, a package of freeze-dried peas. Not that Eames was any less deadly, but he tended to leave his creativity for things other than causing bodily harm. Things like... making supposedly coffee-flavored caffeine crystals taste less like arse and more like actual coffee.

"Time-honored tradition," he muttered to himself. Last time they had all been reduced to the vile-tasting crystals, he had been the one assigned to improvement-attempts, and the only one who had been able to make anything palatable out of them— apart from an unforgettable and sadly never-repeated instance when Dom had surfaced from his fog of misery long enough to somehow imbue the jug he had haphazardly made with actual flavor. Since none of them, including Dom, had the faintest idea of how that had been accomplished, it had acquired the dubious virtue of a title of its own— rather like the Pirates That Aren't, it had become That Coffee Day.

It was also used as a pretty damn incredible way of explaining just why Dom's genius was unquantifiable, and a never-failing method of inspiring Yusuf into rhapsodies on the irrelevant that were more pornographic than usual, but Eames saved those up for special occasions, or when he wanted to see Saito's left eyelid develop a twitch, which was fairly special all on its own, since normally nothing and no-one but Arthur could manage that.

"Here..." Eames handed Arthur his coffee-like substitute. "Guaranteed to be at least 20% less vile."

"Thank you." Arthur took the cup and chugged it, making a face. "Seven cold hells, that's horrid. More please?"

Eames snorted, "Of course, darling."

Arthur appeared to become mostly alert half-way through his third cup. "I figure we should reach the station in another four hours. That should give us plenty of time to get everything prepped."

Yes, prep-time. But what Arthur really meant was time for them to get their temp-mods in place. One for him as a disguise and two for Arthur, his disguise and the special fix-it, courtesy of Yusuf, the one he wouldn't turn off unless it was absolutely essential.

Eames wondered how odd it would be to know that Arthur, for the first time, would see his mod and not him.

A bit later, he was wondering how the fuck he was going to cope at all with the fact that, equally for the first time, he couldn't see Arthur. Which for some stupid reason hadn't even crossed his mind as a potential problem until he was looking at it— or rather trying _not_ to look at it, not _him_ , but _it_ — and trying his best not to have a complete and utter meltdown at the whole situation.

He had no idea what Arthur was thinking until the holo with the cropped blond hair shuddered all over like a wet dog and flickered out of sight.

"Dead and corpsed lords, damn it, fuck, power it off," Arthur said, looking and sounding as horrified as Eames felt.

It was an unspeakable relief to do just that.

"Fuck," Arthur tilted his head and stared at Eames. "I. I had no idea how difficult that was going to be. How much I depend on you being you."

"Nor I," Eames nodded in vehement agreement, then sighed. "Best have them on though, and get it all out now, yeah?"

"I guess..." Arthur frowned. "How did Yusuf pick the images? I mean... why that one?"

"No clue. What's it like then?" Eames frowned. He hadn't seen what Yusuf had designed for him, being far more interested in Arthur's. He wanted Arthur to look as strong and competent as he was, but not intimidating enough to be challenged for it.

"Like Maf had a sister," Arthur said. "Which is a fucking disturbing thought."

Eames grinned in sudden appreciation. "Yeah, but clever," he pointed out. "That way no-one'll wonder why I'm chasing up on something Maf did, or why neither of us is working alone. Not bad, Yusuf."

He powered the mod back up and strolled over to the mirror, putting just a shade more roll into his walk than he normally would have. "Have to make a few adjustments with this. Yusuf has many talents, but make-up and fashion are not among them."

"Maybe he was trying for flash? I mean the not-pirates seem to sort of go for that," Arthur ventured.

"Could be," Eames shrugged. "But we don't match and that could be important."

And besides that, fucking _ruffles_? What had Yusuf been thinking?

After a few minutes of prodding and cursing in equal measure at the mod-plug, Eames had a more pared-down and practical version of... whatever it was that Yusuf _had_ been thinking, which didn't really bear too much consideration.

At least this time he'd remembered to include holo-weapons that were the same kind as Eames preferred using under his cover.

Arthur was watching him with less revulsion, though, and more interest, which Eames could only put on the side of good.

"It's funny," Arthur said, as Eames adjusted his left coat sleeve for the fourth time, giving it just enough apparent weight to move away from his holo's arm when he gestured, "I've seen you doing this so many times, but I never realized just how much you change _into_ your new persona."

"Because you could never see the results of it before," Eames tried a few different smiles in the mirror, finally deciding on something that he instantly dubbed _satiated kitten_. It was the one that would be most likely to have people underestimate him. It also looked, if you were used to women like Ariadne, with a healthy appreciation for violence and an equally healthy response time when it came to using it, like a very clear warning signal to stay the hell away from any and all feminine wiles. _Perfect._ "Let's have a look at you now. See if we need to adjust anything."

At the moment, Arthur's holo stood like Arthur, moved like Arthur. It wasn't bad, all things considered, but Eames wanted to add a bit more attitude to the shoulders and a bit more 'military' to his coat. Not that he wanted Arthur to look like a soldier, but those touches would make him more untouchable. And untouchable was something he wanted Arthur to be.

"You're going to have to let your holo do the work for you," he said. "It'll respond to your circumstances, not your reactions. If you think he should be smiling, then that's what'll happen. In your case, though, better not think about it too much. We're aiming for humorless uptight military. So the fewer reactions the better. It'll blink and breathe and everything, yeah, so you don't need to worry about that, it'll pretty much move with you, but you can get away with a hell of a lot under it. Yusuf's a fucking genius, no-one'll peg you even on a first wearing. But I think we need to change a bit, so as to give you even more cover..."

He was fiddling with the mod as he talked, tiny little adjustments that would show Arthur in his reflection far more clearly than anything Eames could try and explain, just what he was after.

//SPACE STATION DOCK POINT IN TWO HOURS\\\, said the ship's navigational AI, which no longer had Saito's calm intellectual voice, which just seemed odd, but of course made sense, since it obviously no longer _was_ Saito. 

Well. 

Probably.

 _Hopefully,_ Eames amended mentally, because the thought of Saito performing another one of his 'undetected stowaway' tricks was a bit more than he could handle right at that second.

"Move around a bit, love. I need to see if I've got this all right."

"I'm sure it's fine," Arthur's voice was lower and rougher in the mod, dark and scratchy as if he growled a lot. 

"Yeah, and it is, but do it anyway."

Arthur paced the length of the cabin three times, "I feel ridiculous doing this."

"Just think how I feel," Eames chuckled, his voice a light, almost chiming sound. He demonstrated the walk that Maf's sister would use.

"Okay, and that's even better than Ari's walk when she's sleepy and not wound up like she usually is."

"No bones?" Eames grinned, pleased with himself. His holo smoldered, eyelids lowered and lips barely curved. _Oh, I'm going to have fun with this one._

"None at all," Arthur confirmed, looking and sounding vaguely irritated by it. But Eames knew, as well as he knew his own real body and face, that Arthur would be laughing quietly. And for the first time since they'd put the mods on, he knew that he could do this, that he could deal with whatever Station Nine threw at them.

Because not holos, not mods, not any of Yusuf's genius and his own sense of mild disorientation, could change the simple fact that he didn't _need_ to see Arthur, not any more. He might have once, back on the Gates-Planet, but now he _knew_ him, instead.

And that, Eames thought, might well be even better.

~*~

The station was neither better nor worse than Arthur remembered it. There were some new additions and a few minor alterations that were obvious as they drew nearer. It seemed busier, somehow, more prosperous than before. Considering all the policing that Saito was doing, that only made sense. Pirates— not-pirates— freebooters, shady traders, illegal arms dealers, drug runners, slavers, were all being run out of the core areas, so places like Station Nine were fast becoming more well known among those that Saito actually did want to drive out. They were safe there, for the most part, because Saito understood the nature of people well enough to know that trying to stomp out vice too thoroughly only created worse vice, better hidden vice.

They had clearance to dock the Mandell, rechristened _Firebrand_ for the trip with a new but carefully aged paint job on its hull, and Arthur allowed the AI to take over the functions. He wanted to watch the view, and take a few pages out of Eames's book and observe.

"It's changed a bit."

"It would."

"Think you can still buy space for us with a card game?" Arthur asked, and while the holo beside him merely looked contemplative, Arthur had no doubt that he was being leveled with a very flat look indeed. " _Just_ a card game, Eames, not putting yourself in as a bargaining chip this time."

"We should stay on the Mandell to sleep or break," was all Eames said, and that in itself was discouraging.

"You don't want to try and... I don't know, integrate a little more than that?"

"No," Eames said, and this time even his holo sounded uncompromising. "The last thing we want, this time, is to integrate at all. This time, we don't need refuge. We just need information. And neither of us have to concede a fucking thing to a single game."

"So just play it like it's Maf?" Arthur shrugged. "Tell the facts and don't play?"

"Well, the facts, as we want 'em." Eames shrugged, the mod making it a smooth almost-roll of the shoulders. "'S not like we say— Where's the Psion? But yeah, we're looking."

Arthur nodded. They were following up on something for Maf, that was their cover story. A dodgy shipment of some kind, sold to him by the tattooed man and overpaid for. It almost sounded like some kind of old holo-drama. 

Of course, they wouldn't say the man had tattoos, that might be a bit too obvious. But a general description and a track back to the port that Maf had seen him in would work just as well. He'd follow Eames's lead on this, as much as he could. Eames had more experience with spacers and had a better idea of how far a lie could be stretched.

No-one would be eager to have a man like Maf considering them untrustworthy in the markets— he was too well-known, on both sides of the trade, and proud of his (comparatively) high standards. To sell him short and then make his next deal look bad was a very unwise decision that would have most people eager to show themselves as terribly, terribly uninvolved.

Arthur realized that Yusuf had in fact dealt them a masterstroke with his choice of Eames's holo. For Maf not to have come himself but to have sent someone obviously related in his place implied that he was intending to deal with this personally— but later, when his annoyance had been given time to simmer down into a more calculated and careful revenge stratagem.

It had also amazed Arthur, once he had begun to dig for information, to find out that calculating but affable Maf was so well known, and actually feared. It was something he never would have guessed from their few interactions. That was also, Arthur realized, why Maf had been dealing for what Eames had offered so long ago. A kink that was bargained for was one that could not be exploited at a later date. It was a deal, a transaction, with both parties coming out ahead in some way.

He felt the slight bump that meant they had docked, the inertial dampeners off-line for the slow, delicate maneuver. 

"Looks like it's showtime, darling. Are you ready?"

"As I'll ever be," Arthur conceded with a tight grin.

The last time they'd made any kind of performance out of docking the Mandell, it had been on Seisui, and for Saito's benefit. They might be disguised now, right down to the Mandell herself, but a performance was still needed, and for similar reasons.

For Saito, they had played up the casual aspect of their arrival, treating him as though yes, they were a bit annoyed with him still for not really being an AI, but nonetheless prepared to accept him— as one of _them_. They had overplayed their irreverence toward Seisui, what they were being asked to do, Dom, and even the several shocks that Saito had delivered to them shortly before.

This time, they needed to bring off almost the exact opposite— instant notice, automatic respect, a healthy wariness beyond even that automatically granted to new arrivals.

They needed to be just different enough to hint at danger, just similar enough to hint at what that danger might be.

For the first time, Arthur understood just what Eames got out of these games. He could feel the same faint buzz, just under his skin, as though even his blood had tightened itself up that little bit extra, heightened his alertness into something more.

And beneath his blond and stoic and military holo, no-one, even if he showed it, would be able to see how it affected him.

~*~

It was strange how the presence or absence of two people could change the atmosphere of a home. Even stranger, Saito thought, when one took into consideration the fact that Arthur and Eames actually spent a relatively small amount of time in his home in the first place.

 _Our home,_ Saito corrected himself. From the moment the Mandell had landed on Seisui , Dom and his little group of amazing misfits had made the whole place just a little bit warmer, a little bit cozier, a little bit... more. Not that Kazue was, or had ever been in any way lacking, and he hoped he had never been so to her, but he still knew that, despite her much-vaunted preference for peace and tranquility, she had always felt somewhat lonely in her large house on the hill. But now, with two more children to take care of, and all the craziness that seemed to follow Dom's amazingly odd adopted family, she had awakened from her aesthetic composure and actually seemed interested in things again. No more fretting over perfection and placement and grace in stillness and the unsaid. Her long claimed cravings for serenity had been overwhelmed by mud pies and turtle nests and singing doggerel rhymes, and learning new and irrelevantly unnecessary and simply _enjoyable_ skills that Ariadne and Yusuf brought back with them from new city planets. And, more than anything, she had been spending a large amount of her time keeping an eye on Arthur and Eames, who she somehow seemed to think needed more mothering than James, Philippa and Yumi combined. Saito was still the centre of her strangely perfect world, but her world had grown larger, day by day, and her love had grown with it. For the first time, she and Saito were happy, rather than merely at peace, and he was wise enough to know that his own horizons had expanded, too, and that he was the better for it, though the changes were not of his making.

So with Eames and Arthur gone on a self-organized and secretive journey, things had grown a bit tense. It was as if everyone were expecting one or the other of them to jump out of a cupboard and yell, "Ha! Fooled you!"

It was most disconcerting.

It was all the more disconcerting because Yusuf, whom Saito thought of as some star-born Nemesis created only for his need for order in life, was keeping to himself, and had put on (rumor had it, though Saito had not seen this for himself) the gauntlet that held his best and rarest and least-used mod. The only time Saito had seen that gauntlet in operation, Yusuf had been using it and the strange modifying gun that went with it to attempt to alter Eames's time-jack.

He had, of course, succeeded in what _Eames_ had asked for— the damned thing was now fully operational again— but as far as Saito knew, Yusuf had never mastered the time-jack fully enough to be able to treat it as he could any other perm- or temp-mod, and shut it down when its wearer desired. Or, more to the point, _needed_ , which was as always of far greater importance to any mod-wearer, be it temp or perm.

Was that why the disappearance? Had Yusuf finally found a way, was the time-jack now able to disconnect— or had Eames and Yusuf simply reversed the process of whatever had been done to Arthur, reversed it and configured it and now disabled it?

If so, Saito could more than see why Eames and Arthur had taken off. A disabled Psion was even more a target that Eames could ever have been when he had been able to leave danger at a moment's notice of threat. They would need to be somewhere where Eames could learn to compensate, recalibrate his body, change his sense of time and motion entirely; and much though Saito knew they both loved Seisui, they would never consider working out something so unstable anywhere near the children— or Dom.

And yet— however much sense that made, Saito did not think it was anywhere close to the truth. There would have been a different feel to his home, if that had been the case, and Yusuf would have been feeding the rumors to bolster his image, not dismissing them out of hand as ridiculous imaginings on the part of Saito's staff. Ariadne, brilliant strategist though she might be, loving her work for Saito as much as she did, would never have allowed them to leave alone, if she had thought there might be danger. And Dom would not be the strange combination of worry and disconcerted ignorance that he was now, nor would he have looked so peculiarly suspicious of Yusuf —

No. That was wrong. Saito had assumed that Dom's suspicions were aimed at Yusuf, because that was the only thing that made sense, the perm-mod creator mistrusting the temp-mod designer's intentions, if not his skill. That was an invariable failing in the relationship between those two, their work too similar and yet too different for either of them to fully trust each others' abilities, undeserved though that lack of trust might be.

But it was _Ariadne_ who had made Dom watchful, and that was new. And, as all new things, and especially new shifts in dynamic between his astounding team always did, it made Saito— concerned.

And, as it always did, concern required concrete answers even if the questions had to be couched in the vaguest of terms.

"Ah, Ariadne," Saito began, when he finally located his general in the greenhouse he could not remember having ordered to be built, "Kazue told me that you were involving yourself in a new hobby. Are you enjoying it?"

"I'm not sure yet," was Ariadne's reply. "The flowers are beautiful, of course, but at this point I'm not far enough along to know if I have any skill or if I'll just be a clumsy amateur no matter what I do. I'm hoping for passable."

She grinned at Saito, causing him to smile back. 

Really, all of Dom's family had such truly winning ways, even when they were not setting out to consciously charm. Well, Saito did tend to put Yusuf on the 'not sure' portion of the list, but that was only because Yusuf's idea of making friends seemed to be tormenting someone until they missed him when he wasn't around. It was rather like that strange syndrome that affected prisoners and made them attracted to their jailors.

"I believe it is the mental order it requires which brings half at least of the satisfaction one finds in this work," Saito pointed out, and Ariadne rolled her eyes.

"At this rate I'm going to be creating chaos as an art form before I can even arrange a one-note vase with any kind of aesthetic quality whatsoever," she said bluntly. "Yusuf says I'm up there with James for tape-supply requests."

"Now that I do not believe," Saito said instinctively, and Ariadne laughed.

"Well. He's exaggerating, possibly. But not by much!"

"I have heard some distressing rumors about Yusuf, as of late," Saito said in seeming admission, but no nervousness or faltering appeared in Ariadne's calm demeanor as she continued her self-appointed task.

"If it's the one about the salamander," she said, "there were actually three of them." At Saito's sudden, involuntary twitch, because no, he did _not_ want to know what that was about, or even, stars help him, what _kind_ of salamanders she meant, she bit her lip to hide a smile (badly, Saito could not help but notice) and continued, "Not the salamanders? Oh. Sorry, go on."

"It pertains to the trip that Eames and Arthur have undertaken," Saito's tone gave not a hint of his concern.

"Oh?" Ariadne looked down at the flowers she had cut, busying herself with sorting them rather than looking at Saito.

"What has he created for them this time?" It was a simple enough question, and Saito hoped that Ariadne would take it as simple curiosity.

Ariadne looked up at him with clear and guileless eyes, and said equally simply, "I don't know. Because when he'd finished, and _could_ tell me, I asked him not to."

Saito was completely— and unpleasantly— taken aback. "You— _why_?"

Ariadne kept looking at him, cool and stern and utterly honest, and replied, "So that when you asked me, whether as a friend or as your General, I would be able to tell you only the truth."

"That you do not know." Saito hissed air through his teeth. "Ariadne, that is one game I thought you would never lower yourself to play."

"I consider it the least I can do, within the parameters I insisted upon setting them and myself," Ariadne responded, and now there was the steel he had come to rely upon in her voice, not even slightly concealed— and aimed all at him.

"And those are?" He would not be defeated. Not by Ariadne, not by the evasion he had taught her himself, not by the games that the team had suddenly decided to play.

"That my giving them a ship was all the help they would receive from me, now and for however long it takes them to finish this," Ariadne said. "And that, I think, is letting them down quite enough. Don't you?"

She smiled at him once more, picking up her armful of flowers, and walked past him, before he could commit the folly of insisting she explain, or stopping her from leaving him by taking her wrist, or ordering her to remain and elucidate.

She might be prepared to demean herself in gamesmanship, but it did not mean he had to follow her example.

And although Saito was momentarily stymied in taking the direct approach, he had other resources. He returned to his offices and began breaking through to find what last enquiries Arthur had been following before their somewhat abrupt departure.

It didn't seem to be anything different than the things he had been following over the past months— the strike patterns of the worst of the pirate fleets, which planets they should next exert influence over and how best to do it, suggestions as to investments that might give them an in to some of the trading cartels and, unceasingly, the search for any other survivors of the Psion troops. Anyone skilled enough to hack into his own systems would have found the information duplicated and added to and passed back to Arthur. It was nothing that set his mind on an unusual track or caught his eye.

Eames never left a trail in any case, so it would be an entirely fruitless endeavor to try and pinpoint what his interface movements had been. One of the truly annoying side effects of his time-jack was that more than half the time, it wasn't as _if_ he hadn't accessed the records, it was that his interface genuinely logged a lack of visitation.

While it was sometimes incredibly useful, it was more often than not (such as _right now_ , Saito admitted to himself rather grimly) a downright irritation.

And Yusuf, like Dom, never interfaced with the system at all for the things he was working on. It was all completely hopeless and useless, and Saito was very close to actually losing his temper with it— a rarity, and not one he was in the least bit appreciative of.

"Hey, Saito," Dom leaned in through the office door. "Busy? I just wanted to ask you a couple of questions about the Trialtion's visit next month, but I can come back later if you want."

"No, I—" Saito frowned and looked up at his friend. It was a strange idea, having friends. Normally one of his position and power only claimed allies rather than friends, but somehow, with Dominic Cobb, friend seemed to be the only word that fit. He had come to trust the unquantifiable, broken-but-healing man more than he trusted anyone other than Kazue. The man's loyalty, once given, seemed to be set in stone.

"Actually, Dominic, there is something you can help me with, if you would?"

Dom blinked twice and then stepped into the office, closing the door behind him. "This sounds serious. What do you need?"

"Why would Ariadne find it necessary not to know what Yusuf has been working on, so that she could tell me that with complete honesty?" Saito asked, and Dom's eyes went wide.

"Whew," he said, and dropped into the chair opposite Saito. "Okay, yeah, that _is_ serious. Ari wouldn't condone anything too bad, even with ignorance or for Yusuf's sake. I call him _her_ mod-inhibitor for just that reason— she won't let him even think about going down my road, and it stops her from ever being tempted the way Mal was."

"And now she does not want to know." Saito frowned at his screening wall. "She does not want to know but she assumes it is nothing that would cause what we are striving for here any kind of harm. This does not make sense."

"Yeah, it does," Dom said wryly. "Of course it does. Yusuf's doing something unbelievable for Eames, Ari doesn't approve, and Arthur told her where to get off." He shrugged. "Come on, Saito, that bit's easy. And not why you're worried, either," he said with his damned inconvenient ability to cut through any of Saito's evasions. "If it was one of _those_ sort of things, you'd do that head-in-the-sand thing and quietly prepare for some unknown horror."

"She told me she had given them a ship, and that it was all she would do," Saito admitted quietly. 

Dom waited.

"She referred to it as 'letting them down quite enough'." It was a confession, an admission, a sigh of defeat, a giving in to concern that he could not afford and did not want. But Dom was listening. Dom was making sense out of it, pulling threads together— Saito could _see_ him pulling the threads together— and perhaps, in return for that help, he could afford this impossible lack of understanding, just this once.

"So it's to do with why they left. Saito— you do know that Ari still has... problems, don't you? About Eames's time-jack?"

"Not being deaf, I had gathered this much, yes."

"And you know that it can't be disabled."

"I had thought— it had occurred to me that perhaps they had found a way to replicate whatever went wrong with Arthur's, and—"

"No," Dom said firmly. "It can't be done, and even if it could, _Arthur_ wouldn't have condoned it, never mind Ari. More likely he'd have killed Yusuf and probably even Eames for trying something so stupid on a perm-mod no-one understands properly, and doing it without me even knowing they were going to try, let alone being there for repairs in case something really did go wrong. We wouldn't be looking at Ari not talking and Arthur and Eames pulling a disappearing act on a ship Ari didn't want to give them. We'd be looking at how to spin a political disaster and several deaths."

And strangely, that was almost— reassuring.

"But I do think that whatever this is," Dom continued, "it's a problem we need to know about."

That was much less so. Saito groaned.

"Because it seems like Ari is not just upset about whatever Arthur and Eames are doing, but maybe a little disappointed in herself for not helping them do it." Dom frowned. "Which leaves me wondering what they could be doing that they could talk to Ari and Yusuf about it, but not me... and not you."

Saito tilted his head slightly to one side, thinking. Dom was right, Arthur especially always talked things over with Dom when he could. It was a long standing habit that he rarely ever broke, unless he thought for some reason that—

"Perhaps, Dominic, it is something they feel you need to be protected from in some way?" Saito said quietly. After all, each one of them did it in some way or another. Had done it since they wound up on the Mandell, as far as Saito could determine. He winced as soon as he heard and felt the words hit air, wanting to take them back, phrase them less bluntly, make them less— pitying. 

He did not pity Dominic Cobb, after all. And he would not have him think that was his primary emotion toward him, not even for the sake of satisfying his need to know just what was going on.

But Dom only smiled, a thin thread of amusement running across his exhaustion-heavy face, and replied, "Saito, hasn't it occurred to you yet that you need their protection much more than I do, right now?"

Saito sat back in his chair, and blinked. And revised his angle of approach entirely. And swore, not uncreatively.

"Yeah," Dom agreed. "My feelings entirely."

~*~

The closing of an airlock had seldom had such a sound of finality. It made Arthur feel jumpy and a bit skittish— both things he could not afford to have show up on his face. For the first time since he'd activated it he was more than happy for the blond-haired mod he was wearing. It wouldn't hide any drastic emotions but the subtle edge of nervousness could easily be translated into an expression of hauteur that was much more suitable for the game they were playing.

Still he felt eyes on him, on them, as he preceded Eames down the ramp.

"This must be the place." Arthur was reciting his script just as they'd gone over it. "Because to my thinking, this rat-hole is right up his alley."

Happily, he didn't need to mention names, which was good since they really didn't have any to use.

He had no idea what expression Eames was actually wearing, but he could feel the smirking amusement on the back of his neck, making his skin heat and itch a little under the holo. He fought the urge to rub at it and curse, or just look around and see what in all hells Eames _was_ doing, as far as the rest of the space station was concerned, because he was fairly sure it wasn't him who was getting the sideways attempts at not staring, and the more blatant looks that weren't even making the attempt not to be caught out.

Since he couldn't actually hate the place any more than he already did, he cheerfully and unfairly put a little of the surplus dislike squarely on Eames and his stupid holo-master abilities.

"Not that bad," Eames drawled, and when the _fuck_ had he found the time to get the voice so precisely tailored to the looks Yusuf had designed? "Classy, even. For him."

"For him, maybe. For me, a rat-hole is still a rat-hole." Arthur gave a shrug, and then turned back toward Eames. He didn't offer him/her a hand as he might have for Ariadne, but rather gave a nod that implied both agreement and assessment, not of Eames's persona, but of the situation. It was the same expression he had used a million times, one that said, _I'm ready. We're as safe as it's possible for us to be under these circumstances. I've got your back._

Eames returned the nod and stepped off the end of the ramp, her shoes— his shoes... whatever— clicking sharply on the deck plates.

Eames _liked_ this holo, Arthur realized, and wasn't sure how he could tell, since he'd never been on the outside of seeing one before. He liked it and he was comfortable with its skin, and Yusuf was a genius, because that was what they had needed to make the difference between a potential disaster and an almost certain success. Last time they had been on the station, Eames had been forced to wear holos that were supposed to remind him of exactly where he stood in Lukho's food chain and just what was at stake if he slipped up— and he had asked Yusuf to tweak the designs as much as possible so that he was always just that bit too close to the edge of slipping, always hyper-aware of his own skin within the designs.

It had been a planet-side year of holos like that before Seisui and Saito's calm declaration that there were no holo-wearers on his City-Planet. That no-one _needed_ them.

And Arthur had forgotten how, on the Gates-Planet, Eames had never seemed ill-at ease, no matter what he had chosen to appear as until the next holo-fade and another of Yusuf's designs. He had forgotten, in his relief that they were simply no longer having to live by Lukho's rules, that they had left a world where there had still been small choices remaining to them. The larger ones— Eames having to hide, Arthur fated to never see a single illusion— had been taken from them, but the smaller, everyday ones had remained theirs.

He had never once seen Eames at home with himself on the station's platforms, and he now knew that even if he had been able to see the holos, he would have known the same truth as instinctively as he knew now that, even with all they were there to discover, Eames was as self-satisfied as he appeared.

It made Arthur want to laugh in a light-hearted way that was very much not in keeping with the image they were trying to project, so he turned his impending grin into a smirk before he spoke, "Where do you suppose one would find the Rat King in this maze?"

"Where you always find them, darling," Eames was practically twinkling, drawing all eyes to him, "in the pantry."

Arthur had seen a couple of their watchers scurry off, probably to warn Lukho of their arrival. That was good. The sooner they spoke with him the sooner they could get the game underway, get it done and get off this damn station, hopefully as the winners.

They weren't even halfway across the landing docks before Lukho made his appearance, and Arthur found himself hard-put not to brush his hand against the more visible of his weaponry. Eames didn't even try to conceal that he was doing just that— but then Eames had a far better reason to _choose_ to be seen doing that, considering the relationship to Maf that his appearance implied.

Arthur wasn't sure that it was completely voluntary, though. If Arthur hated Lukho —

 _"I'm going to kill him,"_ he had vowed, back when they were all dependent on Lukho's deal with Eames —

then Eames truly loathed him, and that wasn't always as manageable an emotion. Not a problem so vast that it would affect the holos, but a problem enough that just some of Eames's responses might not be quite in keeping with his current persona.

Then again, no-one who had anything to do with Maf would be capable of treating Lukho with even vague respect, let alone a surface liking. Arthur was fairly sure even Maf never bothered to do more than toss money at the station-runner, and call that as good as anyone was going to get. And a woman who had heard of Lukho from Maf, whether she was related to the spacer or not, would have good cause for wariness, never mind any other feeling.

It didn't stop Arthur from fervently wishing that for just one second he could appear as himself and then simply end Lukho's existence.

"Well, hello there," Lukho's inflection was just as slime-coated as Arthur remembered it— worse, actually, because now the voice was laden with a leering inflection that made Arthur want to step between him and Eames. It would have been an ill-planned move, not because it would have made Eames appear weak, but because it would have put him in the line of fire if Eames needed to draw.

"Ah, just the person we were speaking of," Eames's voice was honey-coated steel, but his words had Arthur raising one hand, pretending to scratch his nose to hide his smirk.

 _King Rat indeed._ It described Lukho perfectly.

"I'm flattered," Lukho said with a smile Arthur hadn't seen before, and could have lived his entire life not having seen, perfectly happily.

"No," Eames said pleasantly, "it wasn't flattering. It was practical. We're looking for someone. Maf says you know where they all are."

No Onyx-speech. Not even Maf's spacer talk. Maf ran a business and Eames was there with regard to its interest, and even false friendliness had no place in talk like that, let alone a degree of familiarity or attempt at charm.

What was interesting, Arthur thought, was that despite all his apparently lecherous interest, Lukho had been using the same clipped Standard.

_So he already thinks he knows what we're after._

It was getting harder and harder not to show any trace of amusement.

"That's a possibility." Lukho raised an eyebrow. "I know most of the people who pass through this station. The problem is, I also know that most of them would not be very happy to know that I spread idle gossip about their business... no matter what it was. I'm sure Maf would understand that."

Eames gave him a wry smile, "Oh, Maf would understand. But he also knows that you didn't get where you are by protecting someone who would deal poorly with someone who gives you regular business, as Maf has always done."

"Deal poorly?" Lukho's expression was still bland. He wasn't going to give away anything until he could see his own profit.

"Poorly enough he's talking about being let down. Not coming back." Eames shrugged. "You know Maf. If it can't be all pleasure..."

Lukho winced. Not much, but a little, enough to make Arthur wonder just _what_ Maf brought to Lukho's gaming tables other than his desire for uncomplicated and weird, fake-violent sex— and a willingness to pay for it. Even if Maf actually had the sexual appetite he liked to try and convince everyone of, that wasn't enough money for Lukho to have let his mask slip so far as to show concern.

So Maf brought something else, perhaps money, perhaps something more valuable. Arthur wasn't entirely sure he wanted to know what it was— and he was equally sure that Eames _did_ know, and always had.

He'd ask later. For now, he wanted to watch as Lukho caved, which wasn't as satisfying as watching him die, but would do as a very temporary fix.

"Right, perhaps we need to discuss this then," Lukho nodded. "But this is hardly the place. I have rooms just down—"

"— I'm sure you don't think that's happening." Arthur interrupted.

Lukho looked from Arthur to Eames and back, "I'm hurt that you don't trust me." 

"I'm hurt that you think we're that stupid," Arthur drawled. "Just as I'm certain you would not agree to continue this on board our ship."

Lukho looked at him for a few long moments, as if trying to figure out where Arthur fit into all of this. Lover? Protector? Business partner? Arthur could see all of that flitting through the other man's eyes. And Eames just stood there, balanced — or rather, _not_ balanced, because Arthur was pretty fucking sure that whatever his holo was doing, Eames was wearing the ancient, revolting old boots he had long ago stated he moved best in— on shoes that Ariadne would have killed for, looking as if the outcome mattered to him not at all.

"Somewhere more public then?"

"I don't see," Eames pointed out, sounding as though he wanted to yawn, "what we need to discuss at all. It's not really got that much to do with you."

"We're in public now," Arthur added helpfully.

A small muscle started to flicker at the side of Lukho's mouth. Somehow, Arthur didn't think it was because he wanted to smile. 

"We could begin with my helping you find this— unfortunate member of Maf's business deal."

"Or not," Eames said, "because how would you be able to help?" It wasn't— _quite_ — scornful. It just wasn't very far off it.

"Because," Lukho said, sounding less slimy now and rather as if he were exerting all his willpower not to shout, "as you may have gathered, I know everyone who comes here."

Eames tilted his head. It should have looked at least slightly endearing, given his appearance. Instead it just looked as though he was considering trajectory.

"If you say so," he said at last. 

Lukho relaxed, just slightly. Arthur finally allowed his holo to look a little less blank. Eames just— kept looking at Lukho, quietly assessing.

"So where can I find Maf's last contacts?" he asked.

"Ah," said Lukho, and then, apparently genuinely concerned, "are you sure you want to—"

Eames sighed. "Yes," he said, and there was no yielding at all in his voice.

"If you're having a conscience problem," Arthur said, firmly cast in his role of unhelpful suggestion-maker, "you can just give us directions."

"His last contact here?" Lukho was starting to look confused. "That's been several sevens ago. Did it take this long for Maf to find him out? That's not like him."

"The trade off wasn't here," Eames rolled his eyes at the obviousness of the question. 

Arthur jumped right in, "If it had been here we would simply have handled it without your dubious help."

"My help's not dub—"

"—until you give us an answer it's not certain help though, is it?"

Lukho was starting to look murderous. It suited him, Arthur thought in a vaguely entertained and detached manner, quite a lot more than his smarmy attempts at civility.

"Let me see if I have this," he said tightly. "You want to know where a contact of Maf's, who might have arrived here recently, might possibly be, and you want me to be _certain_?"

"Well, yes," Eames said innocently. "You did say you know everyone who comes here."

"That doesn't mean I know whose contact they are or aren't," Lukho pointed out. He was starting to look a little desperate. Arthur approved of the look wholeheartedly.

"That's why we were only asking you for directions," Arthur said nicely. "We didn't want to tax you too much."

"Make you think, or anything," Eames clarified.

That might almost have been too much— though probably not. Considering the form Eames was currently in, Lukho was more likely to see it as some kind of flirtation— but Arthur didn't care. All he wanted was to find their target, whoever the fuck he was, prove what he was or wasn't and get home. Whether their target was left alive or dead didn't matter to him, aside from how it would affect Eames.

When Arthur next spoke he tried very simple words, as if he were addressing a child. He was slowly beginning to wonder as to whether that was really the only thing that would get through to Lukho, even with all his apparent success in running and controlling the inhabitants of Station Nine. "Look. Of course we could give you names, but you and I both know that names are worthless. Just as worthless as a description if the man has a mod. He could be calling himself the Emperor of the eight Cronesian stars and it wouldn't make a bit of difference. I can tell you what he looked like when he was last seen, but that can be changed on a whim. You know all this. I know all this. So the question really is, are you helping Maf or do we find someone who can?"

There was a long, calculating silence before Lukho spoke next.

"I'm helping Maf," he said slowly. "But tell him this one's at least some of the debt paid off. If you don't know what that means, he will. The only reason I'm letting you here _at all_ is that fucking debt, or I'd be throwing you off, never mind helping. I don't know who you're looking for, you're right. But I know his kind stick to the Portside. Not the gaming tables. The lower bars. Think they can disappear." He smiled, nastily. "No-one disappears, you know. It's fun watching them try, but." The first slip out of Standard, there, not so much acknowledgement that they were making a deal as a chilling reminder of just how secure Lukho thought— no, _knew_ — himself to be. Childish he might well be, but he was also powerful, and it would be a mistake to ever think otherwise, even briefly.

"Depends what they're trying to disappear from," Eames pointed out, but Lukho didn't stop smiling.

"You think I want someone here who crossed Maf?" It was almost a laugh, incredulously amused, though whether at Eames or at the idea, Arthur couldn't be sure.

"For a price," Eames said evenly, "I think you'd take anyone."

"No price covers a blood-debt," Lukho pointed out, and even Arthur was forced to acknowledge that one, remembering what Eames had said to him, back when he first voiced his intentions toward Lukho.

 _I'm going to kill him,_ he had said, and Eames had replied —

 _Do you_ want _to be the one running this fucking place?_

And no, Arthur didn't. He didn't at all. But fuck. Of all the things he hadn't foreseen or considered, this had to be the most important.

Maf very well might be waiting for his chance to do just that— to take the station away from Lukho and run it himself— or he was content simply to know that he had the power to take it. Whenever he chose.

It seemed much more like the spacer to have decided on letting Lukho know the full implications of the latter.

And that meant that the debt which Lukho currently owed Maf was— quite literally— astronomical.

~*~


	5. iv. {among a vanished tribe}

**iv. {among a vanished tribe}**

The gentle sound of waves crashing at the foot of the hill and the dancing sounds of water flowing in the brook that was closer at hand were meant to bring peace to those who heard them. The soft breeze in the trees and the warm lights that sheltered the pathways rather than glaring out the way, had all been arranged to promote restful contemplation and calm. Dom could sit out in the terraced garden of the home Saito had built for Kazue— his home now as well— and feel nothing but comforted. Mal would have loved it there. She would have added her own little sparks and touches that would delight and amuse. It was something she had always been good at.

Dom supposed that it was encouraging that most of the time this place did nothing but soothe him, allowed him to visit pleasant memories of Mal and their life together, rather than feeling the pain of their separation and his own loss.

Tonight though, tonight not even the delicate light and sounds of the gardens could calm him. He was feeling frustrated and angry— but wasn't sure exactly what he needed to do.

That Ariadne in particular thought she was protecting everyone, he had no doubt. It was her duty as Saito's General for one, and her instinctive action to ensure the safety of those she loved had always driven her, long before Yusuf had made his one and only perm-mod for her, the jeweled lights below her ear that could conjure up a fleet or an army vaster than any imaginings, enough to hold off war with any and all comers; enough to give Saito the time and space and peace within which he practiced his politics, introduced his empire's rules and laws without any visible effort.

_So far._ Dom amended his thoughts a little wryly. There was only so long they could have, any of them, before the fact that Saito's army was for the main part an illusion, and the man himself intended to rule— and rule _absolutely_ — became apparent to everyone. The fact that Dom happened to agree with his aims was, quite honestly, more a relief than anything, because he could not imagine withstanding Saito— could not have imagined it when he first met him, minutes after he had lost his disguise as an AI— and could imagine even less now that he had worked with the man, and seen the extent of his dream— and come to share it.

_I cannot forbid people to think. But I can certainly forbid them to act upon their thoughts. And I do._

Saito's words to them on their arrival on Seisui, half-overwhelmed by its beauty and the lack of holos. The lack of pretence.

They had known they were being bought, with that time and that freedom. It hadn't mattered, then. 

It shouldn't have mattered even now. But for Dom, who would always have loyalties that came before Saito, whether he wanted to or not, it did.

He suspected that the fact it still didn't matter to Ariadne was what had made her refuse the knowledge Yusuf would have offered to give her freely.

And Yusuf —

Yusuf... Dom, as always, didn't understand him at all. He had once called him Ariadne's mod-inhibitor, and been grateful for the fact. But his priorities? No, those still remained a mystery to Dom, and until now he had simply accepted that.

With Arthur and Eames gone, though, he couldn't be quite so unquestioning.

Of all the people that Dom had learned to trust in the rocky aftermath of Mal's collapse, Arthur and Eames were a never-deposed first. Dom trusted them in a way that bordered on frightening, trusted them not only with his own life, but with the lives of his children. Why this should be true he had yet to figure out, but somehow, even while they seemed to be as uncomprehending of it as he was himself, they had never let him down.

Dom turned back towards the house, picking out the lighted windows and attempting to settle himself with thoughts of the many lives behind them, enclosed in wood and paper and screens of light and water. There on the end, Saito's study, his haven from the more pressing cares of government, and from which he had once run his dual life as the ruler of Seisui and the Mandell's AI, full of books, both paper and electronic, warm colors and comfortable chairs. Above and to the left the children's rooms, still dimly lit because Pip liked to sneak in something to read far after the time that lights-out had been called, and they all still pretended not to know. Further along, the rooms that Ari and Yusuf had claimed for themselves— brightly lit for Yusuf because he could never manage to confine himself to his workshop and always had parts for some ongoing project spread across the credenza and desk. 

The light dimmed for a moment and he saw a slender outline pass between the light and the window. Ariadne was still awake, obviously.

More to the point, since she was actually there and hadn't found some reason, after her encounter with Saito, to simply disappear off into the stars again and leave Yusuf to deal with the fall-out, the two of them were still sharing what they tended to refer to as their quarters. Whatever _had_ passed between her and Yusuf— whatever it was that she had decided not to know; whatever it was that Yusuf was responsible for; whatever she might know that had caused her to say she had let anyone down— it had not been the cause of any visible rift between the General and her mod-creator.

And that, Dom thought, was unusual.

Ariadne and Yusuf fought in the same way that they loved— unashamedly and openly and usually infuriating everyone around them, yes, but never behind closed doors unless it was insisted upon for the sake of everyone's ears and eyes, or a rare and self-indulgent wish for a modicum of privacy.

Ariadne might have fought with Arthur— Dom was actually pretty damned sure she had fought with him, because no-one _except_ Arthur managed to make her second-guess herself quite like that— but she hadn't fought with Yusuf. If she had, the whole of Seisui and possibly a few other planets would have been aware of it, and Dom would have been unable to avoid knowing simply because of the volume at which those fights took place.

And Yusuf, unless he had completely missed his guess, and he somehow thought he very much had not, had been a prime mover in whatever scheme Arthur and Eames had cooked up between them and taken off to stars-knew-where.

Dom was beginning to feel decidedly shut out. And he was about to let _someone_ , even if it wasn't the two he'd have preferred to explain the problem to, become extremely aware of just how little he appreciated that.

He gave a nod and slipped quietly back into the house, gently sliding the door closed behind him. If nothing else he would prefer not to disturb either the children or Saito. The former because the resulting chaos would distract him from his goal and the latter because he suspected that Saito was still entertaining— if that was the appropriate word for laying all his plans on the table with no argument accepted— one or two of their guests .

"Ari?" Dom knocked on the door. No signaling for admittance on the interior of Saito's home, you used good old-fashioned flesh against wood. "Ari? I know you're still up, I saw the lights."

"I'm naked!" Ariadne called back. Dom smirked to himself. _Not unless you stripped in the last few seconds,_ he thought, and called back —

"Is that supposed to be a deterrent?"

"Um, _yes_?"

"Bad luck," Dom said loudly, and walked in.

Ariadne, as he had somehow thought, was fully clothed, standing in the middle of the room, and looking distinctly aggrieved.

"Naked means go away," she pointed out, putting her hands on her hips.

"Mm," Dom agreed pleasantly. "Except you're not, and you've regressed to acting the brat. Care to explain?"

"I don't think I need to explain why I'm not naked," Ariadne said, pouting a little. "You need to explain why you'd have come in anyway, though!"

"Because I live with far too many degenerates," Dom said, "and the day I find attraction to any of you a problem, I am going straight down to the coast and drowning myself out of shame. Now, if you'd said _Yusuf_ was naked, I might have reconsidered, because at the risk of sounding like some _actual_ children I know, ew."

"Insulted!" came the shout from Yusuf's workroom. "Also, not naked, thank you so much!"

"Good!" Dom yelled back. "Get out here!"

"But I'm working..."

"Too bad."

"Oh, please no," Ariadne whined. "You're using the dad-voice. Yusuf, he's using the dad-voice and I refuse to face that alone. Come out!"

There was some shuffling and banging, all very melodramatic sounding, as if Yusuf was doing it to impress Dom with just exactly _how_ busy he was. 

Dom was not impressed in the slightest.

"Dominic," Yusuf said as he finally entered the sitting room. "What a lovely surprise. Would you like some tea? Um... scotch? Arsenic?"

"How about a nice shot of truth?" Dom said, still smiling, and Yusuf sighed.

"Ah. Now that— that might be a little tricky."

"Right, what with Ari not knowing," Dom agreed in fake sympathy.

"What with Ari not choosing to know," said the object of discussion sternly. "Oh dear. Saito was supposed to be put off, not go running to you."

"It's Saito." Dom actually _felt_ a little sympathetic, that time. "He never does what you hope for."

"Too bloody true," Yusuf muttered. "Oh, sorry, I said that outside my head, very silly of me, forgive my brain."

"Not this millennium," Dom said, "if even half of what I've hypothesized is anywhere near to being true."

"Do I get to hear the hypothesis before you start shouting?" Ariadne asked brightly. "Or before I have to leave so I still don't know whatever it is you did, Yusuf, because I don't want to have to kill you."

Dom blinked. Even for them that was a bit— odd. "Isn't it supposed to be if he tells you he has to kill _you_?" he asked in some bewilderment.

"Not in this instance," Ariadne said a bit grimly. "Oh, lords, just sit down, everyone. I might have known this would turn to crap. Or go bad. Which is what," she finished up, sitting down herself in one of the chairs, "I told Arthur."

"I just want to know where they've gone and what they are doing, Ari. It's simple." Dom shook his head, "Or is certainly should be."

"It's Eames," Yusuf pointed out, "and Arthur, for that matter. They don't appear to do simple."

Normally Dom would have wholeheartedly agreed with that statement, but at the moment he just wanted answers. "Yes, I know. And neither do the two of you and I won't even begin to discuss Saito. I just want this without all the smoke and mirrors."

The glances between Yusuf and Ari just served to bring back his earlier anger.

"Look, I'm not going to break. I just want some fucking answers!"

"Yeah," Yusuf said, rubbing at his forehead, and although he sounded a little worried, there was not a trace of the strained, forced gentleness in his voice that had characterized their interactions up until their arrival on Seisui. "Yeah, I know that, Dom, it's just—"

"We're not sure we have any," Ariadne finished up. She looked mildly annoyed, in contrast to Yusuf's open concern. "We can tell you what we know, I guess..."

"Yeah. Great. Start there," Dom clipped out.

"... but you see, we do not know very much at all," Yusuf chimed in over him. "Dom, I am not covering for anyone. I am not even being a good friend, or lying so that Ari will not have to know things. There is a great deal that _no-one_ knows. And I think that may be why you were not told. You do not have a very good record of dealing well with uncertainty."

Dom conceded that. But still— "And the rest of you do?" he demanded.

"No," Yusuf said, looking at Ariadne, who had sunk back in her chair with her head tilted back, not looking at any of them. "No, we do not. Any of us. And I think it was uncertainty which has led to a certain amount of— let us be kind, and say lack of forethought—"

"Fucking idiocy," Ari said to the ceiling, "is more like it—"

"—lack of _forethought_ ," Yusuf re-emphasized, "which has Arthur and Eames going back to Station Nine."

For a long moment Dom was certain that he had misheard. For an even longer moment he was just as certain that Yusuf was joking. Then, very quickly, the serious look on Yusuf's face convinced Dom that it was the complete and utter truth. "But... but they hated it there. We all did. It's... horrible."

When, Dom wondered, had his vocabulary degenerated to that of a four year old?

"Yes," Ari agreed, "which is why they went alone. I refused to go back to that horrible place."

"You—" Dom frowned. "You refused? They went alone? After all that they have done for us, you let that happen? I don't—"

"I didn't want them to go." Ari explained. "I tried to talk Arthur out of it, but he refused to listen to reason."

Dom scrubbed at his face one-handed, "Ari, you know Arthur as well as I do. Don't you think he had a damn good reason if he decided to risk it?"

"Yes," Ari said slowly. "I know he did. And I didn't want to hear it. I still don't want to hear it. I don't want to know how bad it is, and I don't want to think about just how fucking badly I've let them down. But Dom, I _can't_ go back there. Asking me to go back there is like turning around and— and—"

"—and asking Arthur to go back to the Boneyard," Yusuf finished unexpectedly. Dom stared at him. "What? We all have things we blame ourselves for more than others. The Boneyard is Arthur's private idea of everything he ever got wrong made into reality, would you truly ask him to go back to it?"

"I thought Eames would have more—" Dom started, and Yusuf waved a hand.

"Yes, certainly, and I would think so too, but remember, one can always come to terms with a graveyard. It is failure we cannot accept. You do not return to the Gates-Planet, I have noticed." He sounded almost kind— but this was Yusuf, who didn't know how to _be_ kind, and proved it with his next words. "I do not think you have room to comment, here."

"You think Station Nine was your failure?" Dom asked Ari in amazement. "Ari, you did all you could—"

"Which was precisely fuck-all, yes," Ariadne agreed. "Oh, go on, Yusuf. Lay it on me. I know you told me the basics, but I'm not going to have a choice about finding out all of it when they come back, you said as much yourself, so you might as well let me know the details— _without_ telling me what you made, thanks— at the same time as Dom."

"Well?" Dom snapped when Yusuf didn't say anything.

"I am thinking of how to phrase this so that no-one involved sounds insane," Yusuf said irritably. "Patience, please."

"Yeah, and even just with what I know, I can see how that would be difficult," Ariadne muttered, and Dom snorted in unwilling amusement.

"Hm. Eames was told— and I think believes, to a certain extent— that there is another Psion out there. Arthur has concluded from this... rather peculiar idea... that should this other Psion indeed exist, he will have found refuge on Station Nine, since that is where Eames knew to go. I do not know how accurate either of their conclusions are, I do not know how reliable the information they got was, although I assume it was reasonably so, as I was not asked to cover up any kind of death-scenario, and I do not care to speculate on anyone's mental states. I am also _not_ going to tell Ariadne of what my involvement was in this, Dom, because there are some degrees of trust I demand to be allowed _not to break._ "

Dom nodded. He could allow Yusuf that privilege now that he knew the rest. 

Another Psion— fuck! It wasn't that Dom could begrudge Eames any hope he had of finding any of his people, it was just that what his people had been made into was amazingly dangerous. There were days when, as much as he trusted Eames, he thanked all the Lords for Arthur, because he had the feeling that without Arthur, Eames could have been a very different person than the one he currently was.

"You still shouldn't have sent them out there alone." Because if there was one thing Dom was certain of, this was it. "If there is one other Psion, there could be more. And how do you think they'll react to Arthur and Eames being together? "

It wasn't exactly a secret with the two of them forever together and traipsing all over creation doing errands for Saito.

"Don't see why they would mind two blokes," Yusuf said, with what even an irritated Dom had to admit was somewhat endearing confusion. "Considering they call each other brothers no matter what."

"No matter what what?" Dom asked, thrown off course entirely. It was Ariadne's turn to snort.

"Whether they're men or women, apparently, only Yusuf's decided words are not a thing today."

"Words are always my thing, thank you," Yusuf retorted, and seven hells, but it was tempting to just let them take over with wonderful, familiar, childish bickering.

"I meant," Dom said, rather more loudly than he had meant to, "the part where Arthur used to be a City-Corps soldier. You know? The ones who _caused_ the hells-blasted Boneyard? Those City-Corps? Yes?"

At least, he thought, as they turned almost identically horrified expressions on him, he'd achieved mutual silence for one of the first times ever.

"Yeah," Yusuf said at last. "I can... see why that might be a problem. Except," he added with welcome returning smugness, "I am a genius, not that either of you doubted it for a second, naturally, so it won't be."

"I don't want to _know_ ," Ariadne said warningly.

"I kind of _do_ ," Dom pointed out, but Yusuf just smiled at them both with a highly annoying and probably (almost certainly, if Dom knew Yusuf at all) fallacious smugness.

"My best work," he said, apparently irrelevantly, "has always, always been based upon holos."

Ariadne, surprisingly, was the one to relax at that, rather than getting annoyed because she had been given a hint. Just as Dom was about to ask something in the aid for clarification, she laughed, and said,

"Well. You did give me an invisible army."

"I did indeed," Yusuf agreed cheerfully.

Dom just sighed, recognizing defeat. And promised himself a separate talk with Yusuf as soon as he possibly could.

Because Ariadne might be determined to remain in ignorance, but he was damned if he was going to remain the same way for much longer. And he _was_ going to find out just why Yusuf was so pleased with himself _this_ time.

Because last time, it had also involved Eames, and Yusuf hadn't been talking about what the two of them had really been working on then, either.

And none of it had meant anything good at all.

~*~

The lighting in the bar was typical for what it was, dim and more useful for seeing how much was left in your glass than illuminating the faces of the patrons. Eames had been in, it seemed, a million similar places, either with or without Arthur. The tables were small and packed together to utilize as much space as possible. He could feel the eyes of the 'tender on them when they entered, quickly shifting to _anywhere-but_ as soon as he noticed Lukho.

So their public place was going to be just as private as Lukho wished.

"This is where most of 'em go," Lukho said. "No gaming tables, so I'm less likely to— favor them with my presence, I guess you could say. I would say it, so if they've got any sense, they'll use the same phrasing."

Eames rolled his eyes, not much caring whether the holo repeated his actions or not. His reaction was the same either way— unending scorn for Lukho and his pretensions— and he highly doubted this potential relative to Maf would bother concealing that she felt just the same.

"Don't you ever get tired of being lied to?" he asked, genuinely curious, and Lukho stared at him in quite a different way to his usual lecherous gape.

"No," he said simply. "Can't do, can I? No-one ever tells the truth, so I'd have to be tired of living for that to happen."

"Right," said Eames, thinking _oh, you have no idea how much that would improve everything around here, if you got tired of living, that really would sort a lot of problems out._

"Newest arrivals?" Arthur said briskly, ignoring any metaphysical concepts in favor of the practical.

Lukho scanned the room as if weighing the worth of everything in it. And sadly, Eames thought, that was probably exactly what he was doing. Lukho did, after all, live on the skills of others and being able to judge a good 'fitter from one who was barely adequate was his bread and meat.

"The two at the far end of the bar, the guy with the gaudy shirt, the one nursing the beer and the woman in the blue jumpsuit ."

Eames signaled for the bar tender, slipping delicately onto the nearest stool. Turning towards the rest of the room he casually observed the people that Lukho had pointed out.

But Eames, too, had his methods of instant assessment— based on somewhat different values, true, but still assessments. He looked for how people moved, what they were trying to conceal or display or enhance. He looked for a past or for training in the small everyday gestures that no-one ever bothered to work at re-establishing when they changed their persona, and he based _his_ conclusions or the skill of the lies surrounding him— and the why of them.

The two at the end of the bar he could discount at once— if this man was 'covering good' as Maf had put it, he wouldn't have established any sort of bond, even for a casual drink, where he might be tempted to relax. The woman in the jumpsuit— no. Plausible, but Eames thought her aura of hard-bitten weariness was due more to the need to constantly defend the value of her skills, and avoid paying for her presence with the work more usually found at the docks. Plausible, then, true, she fitted much of the criteria with her plain clothes and her almost tangible defenses, but Eames did not think those defenses included a holo. She was too aware of how she _did_ look for that to be a possibility. 

He might have dismissed the man in the too-brightly-patterned shirt simply on the grounds of his wardrobe and his obviously non-existent fashion sense, but Eames knew better than anyone that the best kind of disguise was one which made people want to avoid looking at you, rather than look again and more closely— it worked almost as well as the thoroughly bland and indistinguishable. Give people one thing to remember about you, especially something you could change and dispose of whenever you chose, and you were creating passing and very temporary holos constantly.

Him, then, or the man who was turning his drink around, slowly, between steady hands, a man who was not there to get drunk, but wanted to give the impression that this was the only reason for his presence.

The gaudy shirt man was ruled out a few moments later when the bartender deposited a drink at his elbow indicating it was from him. Eames shook his head, turning down the gift and making a show of leaning closer to Arthur. The man gave a shrug and a smile and went back to his drink. 

"The man nursing the beer." Eames told Arthur under his breath, the bar's mood music drowning out the exchange.

"What do they trade?" Arthur raised an eyebrow at Lukho, prompting for more information.

Lukho began running down a list of their skills. A list that Eames immediately tuned out in favor of scanning the rest of the room.

"And then there's him. Brought in some scavenged tech, metal, entertainment holos... a mixed bag of stuff, really." Lukho's voice droned on.

Eames leaned close to Arthur again, "Buy a round for the house."

"There's over thirty people in here." Arthur replied. It wasn't a denial, just a statement of fact.

"But, darling," Eames raised his voice so that at least some of the people outside their little circle could hear him, "I want to celebrate and I want everyone to celebrate with me."

Quickly catching on, Arthur smiled indulgently and waved the bartender over to place the order.

"Good idea," Arthur whispered to him afterwards, "if a bit pricey."

"Well, you have to pay for the best," Eames murmured back in the same tones, and just knew that Arthur would be rolling his eyes at that particular attempt at humor.

But he had been right, and it really was the best way of making sure they had the right target. Everyone else, wary or pleased or just wondering if this was some exciting new angle, responded to their unlooked-for gift in different but quite open ways. The man in the gaudy shirt looked a little confused, then laughed, and raised his new drink to them in a sort of rueful half-toast. The couple across the room offered up in one case a pleasant enough smile, and in the other a slightly raised hand, a gesture of acceptance that was nonetheless very far from an invitation to join them. A small group at a table actually made a very public and obvious show of checking the drinks for some kind of contamination— if they hadn't been before, Eames thought, the amount of powders and liquids they were dropping into their glasses would make the drinks completely unpalatable by the time they were done.

And the dark-haired man with the dull expression and lifeless blue eyes, sitting silently alone, never even looked up from his own drink, still turning it slowly in his hands as though it were the only thing connecting him to reality.

Eames had a sudden sinking feeling that it might very well be true.

"Walk with me," Eames asked Arthur. It was the perfect way to talk to a lot of people. It was also the perfect way to keep Lukho guessing as to what they were doing.

Arthur offered his arm and Eames slipped his hand into it. They wandered through the crowd, stopping here and there to speak to people, being sure that they spoke to each of the people that Lukho had pointed out.

At any other time, Eames would have found himself actually enjoying sharing a drink with the man in the gaudy shirt, whose name turned out to be Dinsmore, or at least that was the name he seemed comfortable giving — though his eyes flickered a little nervously when he said it, as though he wasn't sure how it would be received. Eames, who wasn't sure if he himself had ever _had_ another name than the one he still used even now that he was no longer a Psion, was perfectly happy with that, considering that it might have been the wariness of a man who was habitually mocked— or had been, when younger— for his name, or was using it as an alias for something much worse. He didn't seem to be the type to cover up much, and was one of the rare people who were on the station because that was where they found work, rather than because they were avoiding Saito and his new empire. He spoke admiringly of Saito, introducing the topic himself rather than having to be coaxed toward it, but it was a far-off admiration, as a poor man would have for the wealthy.

On another day, or if Eames had been appearing as himself, he would have tried to persuade Dinsmore that there _was_ a place for him in Saito's new world, that he didn't have to stay on Station Nine and feel that his every piece of work was what gave him a roof over his head, that each time he took a commission he was starting all over again to prove his worth, that his life was as cheap and temporary as Yusuf's most basic of mods.

As it was, he only listened, and hummed in occasional agreement as a spacer might, with the same faint contempt for those who wanted to stay in the same place as Maf always showed.

Dinsmore was a good drinking companion, and a fairly nice man, and he showed not the slightest trace of offence or desire to keep Eames talking when he began to wrap things up and move on.

Leaving the man who so stubbornly clung to his own drink until last would have been too obvious— but making it just as obvious that they were going to talk to everyone who had been there when the drinks had been bought gave him plenty of time to start thinking about departure— and yet he did nothing, only sat there, always turning his glass, staring at nothing with those oddly dead eyes, apparently oblivious to the world around him.

_If he's the Psion,_ Eames thought _he's fucked. And I'm not looking at danger. I'm looking at someone worse off than I've ever been. Old God, I'm looking at someone who's worse off than even_ Dom _ever was._

He didn't even need to look at Arthur to know that he'd reached exactly the same conclusion. Arthur, even with his new ability to see the same things as the rest of the world, had always been able to spot a problem long before it became evident.

After all, that had been his job, once. And some kinds of training were impossible to forget.

Eames knew that better than anyone. After all, he'd been the one trying to forget, right along with Arthur.

And neither of them had ever succeeded.

"Hello," Eames spoke quietly to the man. "Just wanted to be sure you got your drink alright and hope you're enjoying our tiny bit of celebration."

The man started as if he hadn't been watching them travel through the room for the better part of a cycle. "Oh, yes. 'S fine. Thanks." One hand finally left his glass lifeline, and went up to his collar, straightening it, a well-worn gesture that seemed to be so ingrained that it was automatic, unconscious.

And Maf was right, there was the edge of something at the open collar of his shirt, black against pale skin. As calmly as could be, Eames's fingers twitched out signs against his leg. Signs that Arthur knew too, and had once tapped out against a drink-sticky bar by the Horn Gate, but with different words than those Arthur had used, words that would mean something only to another Psion— _jumper, brother, safety_ — and watched the man's face carefully as he continued their small talk, "Lukho told me you brought in quite a haul of scavenged stuff. I had a guess that there were still places out here where the picking were good. Now, now... I'm not going to ask where."

The man's face had remained blank at the signs which a Psion would have watched for, but became agitated when Eames mentioned the salvage.

"Lukho's got it... wrong," he said at last. His voice was slow, as though he had been tasting each one of the syllables before he let them leave his mouth, checking them for any off-putting flavor. "I trade with the salvagers. I don't... go out myself."

"And then sell it on at a profit?" Eames was getting beyond cautious, now. Something was incredibly wrong, here, more wrong than a Psion who knew himself to be found out— or had taught himself to forget and ignore the most basic of signs and signals so that he would never _know_ he had been found out, or even found at all.

The man nodded. "The spacers. They'll pay extra for... knowing it's been checked."

"And they trust you to do that." Arthur didn't make it a question, more of an affirmation, a kind of reassurance that this man was being believed, being listened to.

Eames thanked every star and unknown that Arthur could do that, even through his slightly intimidating holo, that it never occurred to him not to make the best out of what was being given, even if that involved putting aside everything he knew he would need to insist on finding out a little later.

If Eames moved through time at his own pace, Arthur had learned how to spin it out, to make those around him feel that their own time was endless. It was a gift Eames lacked, and one he deeply admired— had openly admired on many occasions, and now, when he had to conceal his response, admired the most.

"They seem to." The man shrugged, his collar gaping just that slight bit more to show that yes, that was a tattoo. It seemed different, though, from Eames's own— smooth, flat and even, where Eames's were raised scars, crooked with all the feeling that had been dug in with them. Still, it was such a small sample to judge from, and could be part of a holo-mod.

"A man to be trusted is always good in business," Arthur held his hand out towards the other man, his cue to Eames that he was disabling the temp mod that allowed him to actually see the holos. If the man was wearing one, Arthur would know in a moment.

"Business, yeah," their possible-Psion agreed, and offered his hand in return. Arthur shook it, quick and perfunctory, before saying,

"So should we discuss this somewhere Lukho isn't? Or—"

"I'm not sure that's, um, possible," the man said a little ruefully. "He's got too many eyes."

"Including the ones in the back of his head," Eames agreed cheerfully. "Mind you, if they were visible, I can't help thinking they'd improve his appearance."

The man didn't even crack a polite smile, looking back down at his drink, and Arthur's head shook in a miniscule gesture.

_Not him._

Eames was startled by the disappointment he felt.

They finished their round of the room and returned to gather up Lukho and leave the bar.

"That was it?" Arthur questioned. "There's no one else?"

"People come, people go," Lukho shrugged. "I let them."

"I'm very disappointed," Eames told him with a frown crossing the pretty face he wore... and then suddenly, for a five count, wasn't wearing at all.

"Eames?" Lukho scowled, but before he could react, Arthur downed him. He knocked him out cold and grabbed Eames's hand as Lukho hit the decking.

"What happened?" Eames asked.

"I'm not sure," came the reply as Arthur guided him back towards their ship. "All the mods dropped for a few seconds, then came back on."

"Bad luck that," Eames struggled to keep up without completely dropping character, a character they might still need to get off the station. "And it sounds rather familiar."

"Doesn't it just," Arthur said grimly.

"Salvage," Eames realized. "Fucking stars, the salvage—"

" _Yes_ , I worked that out!" Arthur snapped. "And we've got more problems than that."

"Oh, how nice," Eames muttered.

"No, this is not a stating-the-obvious game, it's something you didn't know."

"And now would be the ideal time to tell me?"

"I don't think it's ever going to be the ideal time, when we're all on the station," Arthur snapped, and he wasn't angry at all, Eames realized, cold shock hitting him somewhere under his breastbone, like unwisely-swallowed ice. He was _worried_.

"What," he said blankly. "What."

He didn't know if he was even asking.

"He's not a Psion," Arthur said. "But I think he was Corps."

And then he was grabbing at Eames, and _hard_ , and accurately, and Yusuf's mod was obviously still off, because either he knew Eames so well that he didn't even have to see him in order to bypass the holo and know exactly where he was and what he was doing— which was possible— or he'd seen Eames start to turn, and was not having any of it.

"Let me go, Arthur," Eames said through his teeth.

"Not a chance."

"But he was Corps."

"And so was I," Arthur stated calmly, "and here we are."

"But—" Eames cut himself off. Yeah, there was that and if Arthur could feel all of that guilt, after all he'd done to get beyond it, it was entirely possible that the other man could too. Since they'd started facing for Saito, he had run into a few other ex-City-Corps members. It had been about a 50/50 chance that they'd apologize outright. Of course the other fifty had left him with spittle on his face and split knuckles.

"Okay?" Arthur said, slowly lowering his hand, making it Eames's choice as to which way he decided to move. Eames chose sanity, fiercely and deliberately, and nodded sharply, back to following Arthur's lead.

"Yeah. Yeah, okay, I'm okay."

They turned the corner and came to a dead end. 

"Fuck! They've moved things here. Double back."

"I'm thinkin' you should get icy." A voice spoke from behind them, one Eames didn't recognize. "I thought rumors'd be th' draw."

Eames turned to see someone step out of the shadows. It was a man, tall and broad, his shirt open at the collar, his chest and exposed arms covered with rough black tattoos.

"Hello, bruv."

It was as though everything in Eames's brain shut down at the same time; all motor functions, all higher thought, all speech centers. He couldn't have replied for the life of him, more pertinently he couldn't have moved to use a weapon, to run, to activate his time-jack. He was surprised he could still hear, even, over the rush and roar of his accelerated heartbeat, thrumming in his ears.

And then he realized.

His brain hadn't shut down at all.

But his mods had been disconnected.

_Both_ of them.

"Dustfucker," he snarled, and all the rage he had felt earlier flooded him again, pumping through his veins as though a sluice had been unlocked, his only feeling that wasn't the need for violence one of betrayal.

He wanted to get his hands on the Psion. He wanted to _tear him apart_ , and oh, that, that was what he had been thinking of, wasn't it, while he talked about finding him, about how Psions did no good alone, while he said all the right things and worried in the right way and made Arthur believe he was genuinely concerned, he'd been lying to himself more than anything, and lying to Arthur had simply been a side-effect, collateral, inevitable.

The only thing he'd really cared about was making sure _he_ was the one who killed this man, and no-one else.

And the worst thing was— he'd been right to feel that and right to think it and wrong, so very wrong, to let himself pretend it could ever have been anything else, that he'd ever wanted to find someone who'd survived their destruction for any reason _except_ to kill him, because he'd been visible, he'd been known, and he had been waiting to be _found_ , and no-one had even tried.

This man in front of him hadn't even _tried_.

"Get out of our way, _jackman_ ," the insult rolled off Eames's tongue too easily, just as _dustfucker_ had, old ways of speaking coming back to him as though he'd never known any other. "This is you and me. It will happen."

"Don't think so," the other Psion replied. "I like your toy and I think I'll have him. For awhile."

"Eames?" Arthur sounded confused. It wasn't surprising. Here he'd probably thought he was doing something good for Eames, something to make him happy— and now this, instead, where no-one was happy and nothing was what it should be.

"Hsst, Arthur." Eames made a cutting motion with his hand. "It's brave talk and air. Two of us and him."

"Us?" The Psion laughed. "You don't get an _us._ Not with one who's not. Rules, all the rules, you forgot them all, sad, that is."

"Wish I could have," Eames snapped. "Wish I'd erased the lot on it." He wasn't thinking about the word 'toy'. He wasn't thinking about Lukho. He wasn't thinking about anything, because if he started, he was going to go under, and he was going to be unable to see anything, every way out, every possibility lost to him as he broke bones and cut off air and once again became what he had been made to enact.

"Heard you made a leap. Heard you failed your target."

"Yeah?" Eames grinned, slow and nasty, none of the anger he felt at hearing Mal referred to as a target showing through, his unconcern a self-made holo. "Funny, that. Didn't hear anything about you at all."

"That's the way, yeah? Got you out. Make a plan and stick." The Psion nodded. "Planned you and you're here. Target acquired."

"That's where the wrong is. I'm the seeker, no matter your plan," Eames scoffed. "Target surrendered willingly, because I'm here and there's you."

He could see Arthur out of the corner of his eye, frowning. But thank the stars, he was ready, as he always was, ready for whatever was coming, because he'd always back Eames even when he didn't understand what was going on. And that was why they were an us, _and dust to the fucking rules, as well,_ he added mentally.

"And all of us disabled," his fellow Psion continued, "no discrimination, this mod-disabler's got, none at all, it's a radius not a target it takes, and you're no doubt thinking it's you with the advantage. So wrong."

Arthur audibly choked on hard mirth, at that, and Eames knew why. His fused, disabled old perm-mod _was_ his best advantage. Having the new temps removed wasn't anything out of the ordinary for him, whereas Eames guessed the other Psion was feeling as physically out of sorts as Eames himself was. Even if he'd been practicing dead air for the whole time since the Boneyard, he had to have been feeling it. The only one with any advantage at all was Arthur, and Eames would have laughed too, if it wasn't all so disorientatingly fucking awful.

"And then..." the Psion added, "there's them."

Them? Oh... 

Three other men stepped out from the shadows, their weapons aimed directly at them.

"Forgot to mention them. Sorry."

Yeah, Eames would give the man _sorry_ just as soon as he could. _Sorry_ and _fuck off_ and _here's your head_ for a bonus if he could. But right now it looked like he'd have to go along and plan for his moment. _Stand off,_ he told himself. _It's a stand off, so stand back and fucking wait._

Arthur wasn't even pretending not to be furious, visibly warring with his old training for the first time Eames had ever seen. Arthur, who had been trained to kill Psions all his adult life, who had been designed to hunt men like Eames, who would have been on the Boneyard if he could —

_No._ Eames stopped himself there, even as he walked in the direction the weapons were pointing. His fight wasn't with Arthur, or with his past. It was with here, and now, and his own kind, and he needed to _stay_ in the here and now and _deal with it_.

No more reacting, no more lashing out. His thoughts raced, faster than his body could ever move, even if he had been free to try.

_Stand off, and stand back, and think, for once, think and plan and come up with something that's not got revenge as its starting point._

Because he had a terrible feeling that for once, Arthur, not he, was the one who had gone beyond that.

They were led into a room that was very common for the station— just blank metal plates, oddly angled, and a few lights, some basic furniture and nothing more.

"I have plans," the Psion said with a smirk. "But you had the timing. I have a bit of catch up to do now. Have a nice rest."

And he closed the door, locking them in. A few moments later, their mods kicked back in, and they both, automatically, turned off their holo-appearances. Blind faith was all very well, but it was a pure substitute for the familiar.

Arthur gave Eames a nod as soon as it seemed they were clear. They checked for cameras and bugs then settled on the edge of the hard bed.

"Eames, I don't think I like your brother very much."

"How unkind, when he's tried so hard to be nice to you," Eames mocked back, but his heart wasn't in it. "Yeah. I don't like him much either."

"You know him?" Arthur was being weirdly cautious.

"No," Eames shrugged. "I mean yeah, I know him 'cos he's like me, but—"

"He is _nothing_ ," Arthur cut across him venomously, "like you."

Eames blinked at him, confused. "Yeah he is, Arthur, we're the same—"

"No." Adamant and very, very wrong, and Eames was almost embarrassed by how much he needed to have heard that, even though he knew, he _knew_ Arthur was wrong, and should have been correcting him— but he didn't, he couldn't, and he shut up instead and allowed himself the luxury of thinking that maybe it counted if Arthur genuinely thought that, maybe someone believing that made it halfway to true. "If you were the same, Eames? I would have killed you back in that bar by the Horn Gate. You know it, I know it. So don't give me that utter fucking crap, _ever again_."

Not cautious at all, any more. Just furious, and determined, and everything Eames should have been running from, should always have been running from, this City-Corps soldier with his beautifully broken mod and the cold eyes that saw too much— and the equally cold heart that somehow managed to warm for him, and sometimes loving Arthur was the most terrifying thing in the world, because it burned though everything he knew and left him feeling scoured, empty of every certainty save that one thing. That it was love, that he could love, that he did love, that the whole universe could tear itself to shreds and burn down around every other inhabitant, and he wouldn't care as long as he had that love returned.

It also gave him hope, a tiny infinitesimal hope, that maybe at least in part, Arthur could be correct. Or at the very least correct in the him that he was now, because Eames knew he was different now, different from the Psion who hated and killed and followed all the damn rules because that was all he knew how to do. Without that a Psion was nothing— that's what they told him, told his brother, told all of them. And they believed because there was nothing else.

And now? Now there was something else. There was Arthur and the others and Saito's plan and their belief and trust in someone who they shouldn't ever trust.

He took a deep breath, "He's the me that I was... before." _Before you. You and Dom and Yusuf and the new life you gave me._

"Before the Boneyard," Arthur forced out the name.

"Yeah."

"You know I wasn't there." It had been a long time since they'd needed to promise each other that, a long time since the words had needed to be said or heard, but Eames figured that if ever there was a need, it was now, and here, with the man he could have been out there with his 'plans', and the man who could have been the one to kill him locked in this room with him, himself as he might never have become.

"Nor was I," Eames said, feeling something tight and chilled and painful start to relax inside his heart as he said the words.

"I'm not a name on your shoulder and you're not a memory on someone else's."

"I don't have to remember my enemy with honor, because you aren't and you never have been."

"I could have been and I'm not."

"I could have moved time to kill you, and I didn't."

"I don't have to remember you yet."

"I don't have to worry about forgetting you."

"You promised you'd wake up with me, and you've never broken a single promise you made me."

"And I won't," Eames finished. He felt easier, lighter, realized only as he breathed in that his chest _did_ ache, not from emotion but from how much he had tensed up, ready to time-jump, ready to kill, ready to arrive somewhere he wasn't sure of, ready to die; that it wasn't anger Arthur was looking at him with, but outright concern, and how had he ever managed to convince himself Arthur was cold, anyway?

~*~


	6. v. {an emptied world}

**v. {an emptied world}**

Morning on Seisui dawned crisp and clear, or at least crisper and clearer than Dom's hazy sleep-drugged brain. At least he had been spared his usual Pip-and-James sunny wake-up call since they were off to the town with Yumi, and, unfortunately for the future of Dom's mental health, a supposedly supervisory Miles, who had promised them something that Dom was certain he didn't really want to know about. 

Miles, ignoring his total lack of real relationship to Yumi, called days like these by the somewhat grandiose name of Grandparents' Prerogative. Dom, the unfortunate bearer of many a result of these days, just called it insanity— an insanity that resulted in more hare-brained schemes from James, gleeful observation from Yumi, and the inevitable words, "I told him not to, but he never listens," from Pip.

Whether Pip was talking about James or Miles was often a confused point.

"Mergfph..." Dom said, intelligently as he sat up, shoved his feet into slippers and shuffled out to the sitting room. If the lords and lights were good, there would be coffee.

There was, indeed, a pot of coffee. There was also a Saito, which was far more of a wake-up call and infinitely less welcome.

"No," Dom said, holding up a hand.

"Dominic, I have rearranged my schedule so that—"

"No. I don't care. Coffee first. Shush."

Comprehension dawned on Saito's face.

"Ah. My apologies. Continue."

Dom rolled his eyes, and did just that in silence, drinking one cup of fantastically close to boiling, very black coffee in three long gulps and pouring another, holding up his free hand again as Saito opened his mouth.

"No," he said warningly. Saito subsided.

It was midway down the third cup before Dom thought he might be even vaguely strong enough to cope with whatever this was going to be, and nodded at Saito. "Now you can," he said encouragingly.

"Too kind," Saito murmured. "I came to find out what you had discovered."

"Enough," Dom said.

Saito looked briefly annoyed, "Would you care to elaborate, Dominic?"

"Sorry," Dom took another gulp of coffee. "It's nothing bad on this end. Not like before. I think Ari is just being kept out of it because she was being so unhelpful."

He didn't want to tell Saito that he had no real idea what Yusuf had made for Eames. It didn't matter anyway, because he was still going after them. He owed them the back up and they were damn well going to get it.

He just hoped he wouldn't have to go through Saito to get there.

"Did she have reason to be helpful?" Saito asked. "Do you?"

Dom blinked at him. "Um, yes?" he said carefully. "What with it being them? And—" He broke off, stopping himself for no reason he could define.

It wasn't something he could call a premonition, exactly, it was closer to the feeling he sometimes got when he was sitting alone, as though the veil between himself and Mal had become thin enough that he could almost sense her, hear her.

As though there was something just beyond the scope of his living body, something that was nevertheless there, at his shoulder, watching him and speaking to him, and if he only listened hard enough —

But this time it wasn't Mal who hovered on the cusp of his sight and hearing. It was a memory. It was a memory of the dead planetoid, a memory from the mass grave they called the Boneyard, the world of dust and ash and the dry and crumbling dead.

And the memory was so distant because it _had_ been on the very edges of his consciousness, even then. He had been talking to Saito, had been connected directly to him by his interface, and Arthur had been arguing with Eames, and he had said —

He had said something, something that mattered now, something that was the reason Dom needed to stop talking and be very careful, because —

And Dom remembered.

_"... the fake AI who wanted to wire into your time-jack, great idea—"_

He could trust Saito. He _did_ trust Saito.

But he was pretty damn sure most other people couldn't for a second.

Which pretty much explained Ari's reticence to even know the full story of what Yusuf had done before Arthur and Eames left for Station Nine. If she did know and Saito asked, she would feel she had to lie and she didn't want to lie to someone who had done so many good things for her, someone who she worked for and with. But although that was all true, the need she might have had to lie meant that, no matter what she might say, she didn't trust Saito with Eames and Arthur.

Yusuf, of course, wouldn't hesitate. He would just lie or not answer, since he had no qualms about lying to anyone, except for Ari. And that, Dom thought wryly, was only because he feared the consequences of being found out by her.

"They're following up on some information and it's taking them into some bad places," was what he finally said. 

"That is scarcely unusual," Saito agreed. "Although I would have felt more comfortable with a little more information to hand."

"Yeah, but you shouldn't have to be bothered with the non-political bits of this," Dom said easily. "You know what Eames is like about his contacts, I'm pretty much on Ari's side about the 'so don't want to know' part."

"Ah, yes." Saito's eyes crinkled up in a smile. "Your idea of plausible deniability. And self-preservation, which of course, as a proponent of that skill, I applaud."

"Yeah, I thought you would," Dom agreed. "I think we're better off following the time-honored practice of 'don't ask because someone will tell you', to be honest."

"But I reserve the right to ask them a great many questions indeed when they return," Saito added, and if his gaze was a little too sharp and a little too curious, long experience with three perpetually inquisitive children dogging his heels, and Saito's Yumi the worst of the three, had inured Dom to any kind of hopeful, assessing, or too-perceptive looks cast in his direction.

"Me too," he agreed, and took another drink of coffee.

~*~

When all was said and done, Saito gave him a ship. Not just any ship either. It was a match for Saito's own, small and fast with armaments enough to deter several much larger ships and top-of-the-line maneuverability. Best of all, it was easily operated by a single person with little to no help from the ship's AI.

"You are standing for me in so many negotiations, Dominic," Saito said, explaining the extravagance of the second ship, "that I fear for you. Your loss would be a great blow to our efforts... as well as to me personally."

It was one of the few times that Saito had admitted to their growing friendship and it touched Dom deeply. Saito was normally taciturn and non-effusive, so these little hints and small smiles of approval were things that Dom treasured.

And they were all things he had no doubt he would lose, if Saito were to find out his planned destination.

Yusuf, who had no doubt at all of what Dom was planning to do, came to find him with a mod-enhancer for his cloaking perm-mod, one that could be used to cover the ship as well as Dom, and hide its paths from any attempts to register.

"Invisible armies again?" Dom teased him, but Yusuf didn't smile.

"Not this time," he said soberly, and Dom realized that Yusuf was worried; worried for him and worried for the two who had gone to the space-station, and not thinking about himself at all, for once. For a man who prided himself on his selfishness as much as he lauded his own genius, this was a worrying departure from the norm.

"You don't need to," Dom said more gently. "I'll go in, get them out—"

"Dominic," Yusuf interrupted him, "I don't think it will be that simple. And nor do you."

Dom sighed. "No," he agreed. "But a man can hope."

"And a man can fucking well use his perm-mod and the enhancer a genius designer made for him and be _sensible_ ," Yusuf said with emphasis. "Stars know that none of us can lay claim to having sense, but at least you know what it is. At times," he added, because this was Yusuf, and he could never resist.

"Oh dear," Dom said, "you're being nice. That never means anything good."

"Too fucking right," Yusuf agreed, "because none of this is good. Dom— you know what it means, if there is another Psion, you know what you may find has happened—"

"No," Dom said curtly, "no, I don't, and you know it won't."

"You must consider it," Yusuf persisted. "You must. Another Psion has more of a claim on Eames than any of us do. And yes, I include Arthur in that."

"I'll... I'll certainly keep that in mind, Yusuf," Dom nodded. "But for what it's worth, I think you're very wrong."

"And for what it's worth, I _hope_ I'm very wrong." There was a seldom heard sincerity in Yusuf's voice. Dom recognized it, acknowledged it and took the mod enhancer from Yusuf's hands.

"Thanks for this all the same. It will make things easier."

"Come back safe, all of you," Yusuf told him. "Ari will make a terrible fuss if you don't."

"And only you to bear it, poor Yusuf."

"Exactly, you see my concern?"

"So very yes," Dom said solemnly.

"Dom— one last thing. It wasn't Eames I made the new temp-mod for. It's got nothing to do with the time-jack, and you should know that. I made it for Arthur. So that he can see holos. And that might mean, if he's wearing it, it might mean—"

"That for once he's going to be like everyone else, and he won't be able to see me when I'm using _my_ mod." Dom sighed. "Perfect. Wonderful. Thanks. You're unbelievable in every sense of the word and I hope you get foot-rot. Oh, and tell Ari I envy her the blissful ignorance she's insisted on."

"I will do that small thing, yes," Yusuf said with a slight wince.

Dom turned and boarded the ship, weighing all his options. If he didn't use the enhancer, he would be seen by certain parties that, at the very least, wished him no good. If he didn't use it and Arthur was using the mod that Yusuf had created for him, he wouldn't know that Dom was there.

Of course, there was every chance that the whole thing was just another false rumor. Arthur and Eames would realize it and leave the station and neither of the options would matter in the slightest.

"Right. Like that's ever going to happen," Dom shook his head and started his pre-flight checks.

While Dom was no pilot, not like Arthur had trained to be and still was, he was among the better interface-users, better perhaps even than Ariadne, who commanded entire armies with her interface and the help of her perm-mod. With no desire to manage more than one craft at any time, Dom's links with any ship he flew were personal, integral to his own makeup as well as that of the ship— and Saito's gift to him was a perfect example of the type he could control with absolute confidence.

He made sure that the AI was thoroughly disconnected before he started the control checks and programming his flight plan— Saito's perm-mod, after all, might well prove to be an irresistible lure to the man who had once passed _as_ an AI for nearly a city-planet year. Dom had no intention of letting everything go to the seven hells for the sake of implicit trust and a promise Saito had quite decidedly _not_ given.

He had accepted that Dom didn't feel the need to tell him where he was going, or where Arthur and Eames might be. That did not mean he had decided not to find out for himself, or that he wouldn't use any and all means at his disposal to retain at least a little control over their actions. Dom might love the man, but it was no kind of blind and all-consuming love such as he had felt for Mal, nor did Saito have any place in his personal Pantheon.

And Dom, headed toward the stars he so often called upon, found himself hoping that when Saito _did_ find out what was going on, he would remember that fact. Ruler of an empire he might be, and his reach and grasp might one day include all of the heavens.

But he was not, and never would be, a god.

~*~

"Well, that was useless," Arthur collapsed back down on the bed next to Eames. He had spent the better part of an hour going over every item, seam and weld in their tiny prison. The only weakness he had found was a tiny seam next to the ventilation duct, and even assuming he could manage to pry off the grid, he wasn't sure he'd be able to fit into the duct, let alone Eames.

"Coulda told you," Eames shrugged then nuzzled his nose into Arthur's neck. "Might be crazy, but he's not stupid."

"Sadly, I could do with a little more stupid," Arthur relaxed back against Eames. "I just wish I knew what he actually wanted with us."

That was what else he'd had going through his mind for the last hour— escape and motivations. One was almost as futile as the other.

"I'm trying _not_ to think about that," Eames admitted, which was definitely not what Arthur wanted to hear. Eames was the only one who had any kind of insight into what his fellow Psion might be planning, or what he had meant by 'you had the timing', or— well, anything at all, in fact, so the idea that he was deliberately avoiding even considering what might be going on was discouraging and annoying in equal amounts. 

"Yeah, maybe you could start?" Arthur said on a sigh. "Because I'm getting nowhere and somewhere in your time-fucked head has to be some sort of useful half-thought. Somewhere. If that's not asking too much."

"It's asking too much," Eames said without a trace of humor. "I forget things. You know that, Arthur, don't play silly buggers with me. And what I do remember I might have remade. Or for all I know our friend out there might have remade again. So yeah, I am well and truly not-thinking, but thanks anyway."

And that was the point, wasn't it? It was bad enough when you couldn't remember things from your past. When you suspected that the reason you didn't remember was because the past had been altered? Well, that had to be worse. Or maybe it was the not knowing that was worse. Arthur remembered his youth, living on the Gates-Planet with his mother. But what if everything he remembered wasn't true, but just a change made by a Psion? It made him shiver.

"Well, if you can't think of that, can you at least think of how we can get out of this?"

"I have done." 

"And?"

"Nothing so far."

"That's... okay, right, no words for that, none at all, so we can add me not having words to you not thinking, good job, us."

Eames actually laughed at that, unconcerned and infuriating, and Arthur was going to end up being locked up somewhere else entirely even if he _did_ think of a way out, wasn't he, because he was going to have killed Eames and used his bones as weaponry, and somehow he didn't think Dom would be altogether thrilled with that, even as an escape plan.

"I'm trying to think of if I know him. Knew him," Eames said after a pause in which Arthur did not in any way console himself with thoughts of bloody retribution for the laughter.

"Did you?"

"'S as probable as anything else, isn't it?"

"Okay, true, but you don't remember him?"

Eames thumped his head painfully onto Arthur's shoulder. "Yeah, about that..."

Arthur just sighed. "Right. You might have, and now it's erased. Or you genuinely never met him. Or— okay, I'm getting as bad as you, and I am so going back to the no words thing, because that's more soothing."

"Sorry," Eames said. He actually sounded it. Arthur told himself that was why he wasn't beating Eames's head against the wall, and his unusual display of mercy had nothing whatsoever to do with the fact he had asked the wrong damn question.

Not _what he actually wanted with us_. He should have asked _what is he going to do to you?_

Not because that was what he cared about most (although it probably was) but because that was a question Eames might well be able to answer. _What does he want with me,_ on the other hand, was an almost-guarantee of Eames refusing to talk at all.

And quite honestly, Arthur would rather be irritated by the list of what Eames didn't know than by one of the silences that heralded the weird, fugue-like blankness he had seen first on the Boneyard, and then, because he knew what he was looking for, more than once when Eames came back to Seisui after being Saito's 'face'.

"So basically, all we can do is wait?"

"Yeah."

"Fine."

"Yeah."

Arthur figured that sleeping would probably be a good option if they could manage it. It would keep them fresh and stop the endless circles in his head. With only the one entrance to the room, there was little to no chance of anyone sneaking up on them. It was safe, mostly. 

"I'm going to try to get him to let you go."

"You— what?"

"He'll only need me for... for whatever it is. If he knows you're ex-Corps, it's not going to be pretty."

Arthur had figured that much out. He'd actually been doing pretty well at being in denial, even if he hadn't quite been, as Eames had put it, 'not-thinking'. "I'm not leaving you."

"Well, you'll have to in some way," Eames said irritably, "And I'd rather it was in the alive sort of way, if it's all the same to you."

"Well yeah, obviously alive would be way better in any case, but— no, we can force him to use me as a bargaining chip, if you think about it. He knows you're not going to exactly care what he does to you, but if your co-operation depends on _me_ staying alive, then at least we're buying _both_ of us time."

"Think it's going to come down to that, do you?" Eames just sounded resigned.

"I think," Arthur said carefully, "that it's got to be a contingency we plan for, yes."

"And that would be why I was not-thinking." Even Eames's voice sounded like a slump.

"Yeah. I know that. Stop it. I mean, who'd ever have thought _anyone_ would be voluntarily working with Lukho? Unwillingly _for_ him, yeah, definitely. But with him? Corpsed lords, neither of us could have imagined that one."

"People do, Arthur, amazingly enough. I just never considered that he would." Arthur could feel Eames drawing away. "I should have known that. I should have."

"You weren't even sure he was real. How could you know? Don't be an idiot."

"It's what I'm good at, yeah?" Eames huffed. 

"No." Arthur shook his head. "You're the holo-master. Intel? That's my job. If anyone fucked this up, it's me."

"Yeah, guess you're right."

"Thanks for the ready agreement."

"Welcome," Eames said absently, "any time."

"Why is it never when it's something good?" Arthur asked sadly. "Something good, and you argue with me until I feel like I'm talking to James. Get stuck on a space-station with a mad Psion and Lukho, and you agree with me. It's unfair, is what it is."

"You sound like Yusuf," Eames said with an unwilling little huff of laughter. "Woe is me, no-one appreciates my genius, the pure wonder that is me being me and even speaking to you lowly mortals..."

Arthur snickered. Eames's gift for mimicry was always finding new targets, so a repetition of one was unusual and to be valued for its rarity.

And then the electronic locks chimed, an almost happy little sound, one that Arthur guessed would become nerve-jarring very quickly and was designed and intended to do just that.

Making a decision that he knew Eames would yell at him for later— and hopefully would have a later to do so in— Arthur snapped off Yusuf's little slow-decay temp-mod, the one that could only ever be used on him, the one that let him see holos.

Snapped it off at source, and broke it for good, and tried very hard not to think about what Yusuf was going to say about people who didn't appreciate his work, time, and effort; what Dom was going to say about his having accepted the mod in the first place; what Ari was going to say when they finally told her what Yusuf's creation had actually been, and what had been done with it.

He had to, though. And it was worth the risk.

Because he had a feeling that seeing what was actually in front of him was about to get very important indeed.

~*~

If the lords and lights had finally given up even half-trying for control and had just shat on the universe instead, Eames felt, then his arrival back at the Boneyard would have to be at the center of their intestinal explosion. The only highlight was the fact that Arthur was with him, and even that was tempered by the fact that he feared that neither one of them would live long enough to enjoy their togetherness.

The Psion, Cato— Eames refused to think of him as his brother, tradition be fucked— had dragged them from their cell in the early hours of what passed for the station morning and shoved them unceremoniously onto a small ship, launching almost immediately. They had arrived at AR-724 and were just as roughly tossed out onto the scorched sands.

Eames knew then just how bad it was going to be. Arthur, however, ripped his way into oblivious rage from a somnambulistic stupor, fighting every inch of it as he came up.

"No," he said as soon as he opened his eyes from their screwed-close insistence on not knowing, and his first image was the Boneyard, "No, no, and fuck you all, _no_."

"Arthur." Eames tried to keep his voice level. "Arthur, we don't know if we're—"

"Fuck this, _no_!"

" _Arthur!_ "

"I am not fucking doing a replay, I wasn't here and I won't be put here, I can't—"

"Arthur," Eames said again, and this time put his hands on either side of Arthur's face, holding him still and the words still with him. "We're here. No replay. Just here. You and me, here, now, and it's not going to last like this, so take what we got, darling, please, yeah?"

"The toy's upset, bruv? So sad," Cato's voice broke through, almost breaking his concentration on Arthur.

"Arthur, where doesn't matter. Just us, yeah?" Eames got a tense nod that time at least, showing that Arthur was putting his brain and his skills to work rather than letting the situation overwhelm him.

"Very touching," Cato smirked at them. "No time for sweetness, work to be done."

The three goons, Cato's hirelings, were definitely still around, dragging them past a mound of sand toward a partly hidden blast door. It was obviously a fairly new addition to the landscape, still fairly clean and showing no signs of the devastation that had rained down on the little planetoid. Cato keyed the electronic locks and lights came on in the long passage ahead of them.

"How does it feel?" Cato paused to look at Arthur, "You smashed us. All of us. Like bugs."

Eames thought of Yusuf, then, for no real reason except that it was the kind of thing he used to say, before Seisui; Yusuf and his fireworks and his insistence on making new celebrations —

_boom, and aren't the sparkles pretty!_ he would say on the Gates-Planet, ironic and cross and half-drunk as a celebration he refused to attend took over a world—

— and Eames laughed, then, and not even bitterly, because his own mind could keep him safe, it seemed, it could keep him safe even from himself, because he was thinking of Yusuf, not Arthur, he was thinking of his eternally put-upon, endlessly irritable, complete genius of a best mate; he was thinking of Yusuf, who did things out of love and adored Saito's General more than his own life, he was thinking of the second joy in his life and not the first, and oh, that, that he could hold up as a shield so much longer.

"You are bugs," Arthur said, cold and clear and precise, and Eames's shield shattered, and fell, and was re-mended and flew back into his hand all in the same moment of speaking as Arthur continued— "So were we. Now we're not. You want to keep making that division? Well, seven hells, Cato, go on and be my fucking guest. Squash back."

Eames tilted his head back, like Ariadne at her beautiful, General-like, world-destroying worst, and said to the dust-laden air—

"Yeah, _try_."

He looked back down, then, altered his gaze and met Arthur's eyes; met fury with tranquility and tapped out onto his leg—

_not. letting. go._

Arthur's responding, responsive, savage grin in return was all he saw before his shoulder felt as though it had burst into flames, and he was no longer on the planetoid at all, only he was, only he was, and oh, that was how the time-jack felt when someone else used it for him, that was what the dull ache meant, that someone else _could_ use it for him, and that was the burn when he acknowledged that he didn't know what came next, and this was time, time, time, placing him where he once had been and should never be again, because the last time he had been here it had been with Arthur too, but not like this, never like this, and they had said— 

— oh seven hells and Old God, now Cato, too, knew what they had said, he and Arthur, Cato knew about their tiny phoenix-promise that had risen out of the planetoid-ash, Cato knew that here was where it had started, that here was where the words had been said that were meant for binding, for a new life; words for a _promise_ that had been made, but it wasn't those words he used 

(though Eames was expecting him to)

and it wasn't those emotions he tapped into

(though Eames was expecting him to)

it was the first words, the first fears, the first griefs, and somehow, that was worse, knowing how shaken, afraid, bewildered they'd been, stuck on the world's first dead planet, the world's first graveyard.

He could hear them now, and even hearing them, he knew it was trickery, he knew it was a memory altered enough in tone and setting to help cause pain, but still, it was real in one way, and he had to hear it— 

_This isn't a lab. This is a —_

_Morgue._

Full of people he'd known, if only slightly, Psion brothers and scientists and assistants and... and Arthur. Not dead at least but staring at him like he could see right through him, moving to block what Eames already knew was there, had already seen.

_I'm not some damsel in distress, I don't need to be packed in cotton wool and kept away from all the bad things._

But his hands shook and Arthur reached out to take them and steady... 

Wait, that wasn't right. 

Lords and lights, no, no, that wasn't what had happened, not then, and that was a change, and he had made it. Small but significant. He jerked his hands away before any physical contact could be made, he pulled back from Arthur and —

_This isn't a lab. This is a —_

_Morgue._

And he was alone, the wall that lay between him and the dead had broken, it had fallen, it pinned him, it held him, and through that gap where the stones had collapsed to bring him down among them, he could see his brothers, his loves, his friends, and inside that gap someone was crumbling into bone-dust even while they tried to speak to him and he tried to reach them, and oh, oh, no, no, not someone, _her_ , Aure, Aure who'd once asked him to carve a name on her back, a name she was already forgetting, the name of her lover, who was as beautiful and deadly as she ever had been herself, because she couldn't see to do it right, not even with a fixed mirror or a good surgi-cam. Aure with her tongue crushing dust-words against her teeth as she hissed out tomb air, trying to form consonants, vowels, syllables, Aure who could move faster than any of them was decaying from the inside out in front of him and still doing her job, his brother was still doing her job, and —

His hands shook and there were fingers on his wrists and —

_This isn't a lab. I'm not held still under stone. This isn't a lab, no, this is a —_

_Morgue._

And there was a man on one of the benches, a man, a man, not a woman, not his brother Aure, not Aure at all, and they were marking a name into the man, they were marking a name and the blood and the dead-man ash and the ink all ran together and he couldn't quite see the name and they were dead, they were ash upon a sleeve, all of them dead, he was dead, he was a name upon a shoulder, no, he was alive, alive and that was his shoulder and Old God, lights, stars, lords, corpsed hells, no, and that was his shoulder and —

_Wake up with me! Wake up with me! Eames!_

He breathed, and woke, and looked into eyes that were never meant to be that terrified, no matter how dark they got, and —

_This isn't a lab. This is a —_

_Morgue._

" **Eames**!!!"

At that, almost as though it were as simple as calling his name, the time-jumps stopped rolling, and he collapsed into Arthur's arms, dragging them both down to the ground. 

"Enough for now. More playtime later." Cato bent over a terminal, reading through whatever the fuck he'd gained from sending Eames into a jack-loop.

The two of them were unceremoniously dragged into another faceless, windowless room, the door locking them in. 

"Fuck me," Eames groaned.

"Yeah, sounds great, let's fuck, did I not mention the necrophilia kink I've always had, fucking fucking stars and all lords on a glowstick, Eames, what did he— what did you—"

"Y're panicking." Eames's tongue felt like Aure's had looked. Dust. Dust-words, crushing against tomb-breath, "you don't—"

"Yeah, good job, because now I am, actually, you flickered in and out like some shitty holo, oh seven hells I couldn't feel— I can't— I— _where did you go_?"

"Boneyard," Eames managed, and then at Arthur's incredulous and to him four-eyed and blurry glare, "yeah, I know, but— jumping, kept rewriting, he— saw— had your name, he—"

He twisted his neck enough to see the back of his shoulder, the patch of skin above his time-jack that he had deliberately kept clean, and bent over, gasping for air, his ribs caving in, bending and breaking and snapping under the pressure of his own arms, they must be, because why else this pain? "No."

"What is it? Eames! Breathe. Breathe." Arthur tugged him closer, looking at the spot that was holding Eames's terrified gaze. "There's nothing there, Eames. Nothing."

"Don't fucking lie to me, Arthur." _I'm not some damsel in distress, I don't need to —_ "Oh, fuck..." Eames could feel the panic welling up in him. His heart pounding. Was he still looping? Or—? "It's your name, Arthur. Carved right there. Fuck. A date and your name, so I'll never forget it."

"Eames, I promise you. There is nothing there." Arthur frowned, then took Eames's right hand, tugging it up to the spot and forcing his fingers over the spot. "See? No raised skin. No scarring. Nothing."

His hand was cold. So was Arthur's. Still different temperatures. He could distinguish them. His shoulder was warmer. He could feel both of their touches on it.

"You can't see it. You can't feel it. You know you can't, darling, you've got Yusuf's temp-mod on..."

"I broke that for good the second that fucking chime went off," Arthur said. "No holos. Not for me. I see _you._ "

"Arthur, you—"

"I am not. A holo. You arrogant. Fuck."

Eames had heard that before— less bitten off, less distraught, but he had heard it... no, no, not heard it, he had said it, he had _said_ it, he had said it after Arthur found him with Maf, on the docks of Station Nine, and no-one but Arthur could have ever known he had said it, and he wasn't on the Boneyard, not anymore, no, but he was in a fucking stupid cell, _again_ , and Arthur was there with him, and Arthur hadn't left, but he had still jumped, and not by choice, and —

"He's making me change time," he whispered, and Arthur held on; held on and held tight, and snarled in the tones of a Corps-soldier,

"Not for me, he's not."

"You wouldn't know." Eames hated how broken he sounded, how terrified.

"I'd know, Eames. Trust me."

"I— Okay." What more could he say? He just leaned into Arthur, trying to relax his jump-stressed muscles. "He wants to erase it."

"Cato? He wants to erase what?"

"All of it. Never happened. All come back. Fighting and winning this time. Squash the squasher."

"Fighting and winning?" Arthur's laugh sounded as though it had hurt his throat, it was so harsh. It certainly hurt Eames's ear, and he would have rubbed it if he'd wanted to let go of Arthur for long enough to do so. "And I suppose he's going to bring back the— oh fuck. Eames, is he trying to bring back the Psions? Is that it?"

Eames just nodded. "Trying. Time-jump me enough times and—"

"Yeah, no, I got that. Or I got that he thinks that. Or something. Where's he—"

"Arthur, _don't_ —"

"You've got to help me out here—"

"I can't do this—"

"What's the fucking start point? Tell me! Now before he comes back!"

"Morgue," Eames said in defeat, and Arthur got it straight away, got it and shuddered and pulled Eames impossibly closer.

"Yeah, okay," he said at last. "Eames, listen. You have to hang on, okay? Don't let him make you change things that happened."

"You weren't there and nor was I."

"Right," Arthur agreed. "We weren't there. We weren't there. Not that day."

"We weren't there," Eames agreed, and then the damn door made its happy, terrifyingly cheerful noise, and he was promising Arthur and he was on the Boneyard and Arthur wasn't and he was saying —

"Wake up with me,"

and they were breathing in bone-ash, not dust, and Arthur was there and not there, and he was saying—

"If you wanted the marks—"

and he was saying and Arthur was saying and it was all nothing but words, words, words, and words meant nothing and —

and —

and his shoulder burned and ached and bled and he could see the lettering now in his peripheral vision, he honored his enemy on his skin and he —

and Arthur's name was carved into him and he'd made a promise and he'd never promised and the name was in his bones and he —

A woman's voice. Water in the desert. Her voice was the sound of hands clapping into silence, distinct and perfect and cool and real, and they doused the flames.

"There is only time. We move through it. You know this. Psion."

It was all a Psion knew— time and movement and the touch of his brothers, whether they be male or female. Of course he knew.

"We live and we jump and we fight and we bring about change. It's not just what we do, it's what we are."

No. No changes. Not this time. He looked around, seeing the lab, the scientists working in their ever-white coats. All it would take was a word. A few phrases in the right ear and they would be safe. Alive. All of —

_You weren't there and nor was I._

_We weren't there. We weren't there. Not that day._

_We weren't there._

The scientists looked around frantically as sirens went off. He could hear the explosions on the surface. So many that the doors of the cabinets swung open on their own.

"Seal the doors. We should be safe from whatever's going on." One of the scientists turned toward him. "Seal the doors."

He wanted to call out to them. Wanted to say the things no-one had known to even think about, the day the City-Corps came. _No. Don't. Just run... run... there are shuttles... run... just—_

No. 

No changes. 

Not one.

Impossible not to want to make them, impossible not to try to make them, but he had to, he had to stop himself, he had to stay out of it, because —

_You weren't there and nor was I._

_We weren't there. We weren't there. Not that day._

_We weren't there._

And nor was he, but he didn't know where he was, he didn't recognize it, and this _wasn't real_ , because he knew, he knew from the feel of the shifting dust and ash-sands beneath his feet that he had never left the Boneyard—

"There is only time, we move through it, you know this," the woman said again, and her voice was clear and her eyes were clear, and _Mal!_ Eames thought out of nowhere, and she was dark and lovely and laughing —

_I never saw this, this isn't even a memory, why should_ —

and she repeated, "we move through it, you know this," and she spun a little girl around in a fake pirouette while their fingertips touched, and she was going to say _Psion_ , and somewhere she was saying _Psion_ , she had said _Psion_ , she would always be saying _Psion_ —

_she only called me that once, and then she didn't know me_ —

but now and to Eames and to no-one else, she bent down and made as if to whisper in the little girl's ear, and instead whispered to him, past him, into him, the words coming as a cool breeze, a hot wind, a shocked and shocking truth,

"That's Eames, remember? The magician?"

"Eames!" the little girl cried, and ran toward him, jumped up at him so that he was forced to catch her, and her thin arms went trustingly around his neck, and he was standing on sand, he was on Seisui —

_the Boneyard, this is the Boneyard, this sand doesn't come from shell or rock or water, it comes from the dead_ —

and he knew the little girl in his arms, he always had, because it was Philippa, Philippa with her face pressed against his neck, Philippa who was saying "You came back, hello," and the sand was warm and there was a hand on his wrist, and it belonged there, his pulse beat into it, and it was Arthur's hand, and the seagulls —

and the seagulls —

_I belong to you like this plot of land —_

and the seagulls —

_your hand in my hand —_

and the waves and the shore and the seagulls —

_Each look with which you look at me —_

and the bone-dust and the ash and the Boneyard and the —

_I can change time!_

and the seagulls —

"Come back with me!"

and the sand was warm and the dust was warm, and bone and dry marrow were salt-dried in his mouth, and even the rocks crumbled in the airless heat, and the clouds were crushed from out of the sky, and his heart faltered and the waves —

and the waves—

and the sea and the sand and the fingers clasped over his pulse and the bone-dust and the grey ash and the sand and the gulls and he could forget, he could forget, he could make himself forget, he could —

but the seagulls —

"Wake up with me! You promised you would wake up with me, now _wake up_!"

And it was Seisui, but no more real than Philippa and Mal had been, and this time it was a memory so clear it might as well have been the truth, have been real, because he was back on Seisui, back seeing and hearing it for the first time, and the seagulls cried, and Arthur leant against him and laughed, and Ariadne smiled, and Dom stretched out a hand in something that looked almost like a blessing, and Eames said to all of it —

"Yes. Of course, yes."

and opened his eyes back in the bare little room.

"Thank all the fucking lords," Arthur's voice whispered out, tense and shaking with rage and the fear that only Eames knew even existed under all that frozen anger.

"No! Fuckin' no. You're meant to change it, not float through like a ghost!" Cato again, his voice buzzing against Eames's skin and senses like angry hornets.

Eames choked. Found his voice. Spat out word-syllables against the blood-taste and the glass-pain that was shattering through his head. "Warn't there, Cato. Nor'll be. Ever. Can't change wharri dunno."

If Cato wanted it changed, he'd have to do it himself. 

And that was one question that Eames wanted the answer to— why didn't he just do it himself?

But it was Arthur who answered it, his arms curling around each other into a kind of haven that Eames could bend his head into, could muffle the pain against. Arthur who answered it. And with a question.

"Why doesn't your time-jack work, Cato?"

"From the day the Boneyard hit us, innit? We used that, we salvaged another of your freak inhibitor-mods and worked like fuck on it so's the whole of the station could be seen proper-like. Work good on us all, they do. All fused now, we is. 'Cepting him. He's rewiring from his fucking head, he is and it's not _possible!_ " The last work was a shriek, as he jerked a thumb at a blood-drained feeling Eames, still trying to lever himself off the gravel-scattered concrete floor, and failing, letting Arthur hold him up instead.

"Warn' there an' nor w's Arthur," Eames said with thick-voiced difficulty. He was rasping badly on each inhalation, and coughing when he breathed out, and one eye was blown to what felt like blue-black hell with a kind of concussion, an inward bruise he didn't even remember getting, everything overlaid on that side's vision with lurid pink and green waves that throbbed in time to some sleeping giant's pulse, but he was lucid. Cold hells, was he ever lucid. "You were, though, weren't you, Cato. You were there." He spat on the ground, a horrendous mixture of black bile and old clotted blood, of ash and dust and bone and green-dark red from a low vein; a gagging, retching hawk of disgust from the very back of his throat. "You were there, boyo, and you? You ran. Ran with no time-jack, only a space where it'd been, couldn't survive with that space, not up here, not where it counts." He tapped the side of his head, smiling. "You wanted one, though, wanted to fill that hole, oh yeah. Wanted a time-jack, but didn't dare to take. But you still want it, don't you, Cato. Want it so bad it tastes better than blood or starlight in your mouth, feels better than city-light at warp-speed pressure, dancing on your skin. Oh, you crave it. Crave it to be given to you." Eames's voice was a coaxing, husky, whispering croon. "I'll give it to you, sweetheart. If you want it so bad, I can give it. You just come closer and I'll give it..."

The boot that slammed into his ribs wasn't the least bit surprising, nor was the next thing out of Cato's mouth. "You'll not give it, you'll do it. You'll fucking change it out or you'll lose the toy. Melt it down to dust that's no good even for playin' with."

Eames, bloody and unbowed and shivering despite it, felt Arthur's arms wrap around him, shielding him from any further abuse— and felt only gratitude, no misplaced resentment or challenging wills here as he might once have thought was his only option if he wanted to display any kind of strength 

_I can do it alone! Leave me alone!_

— only gratitude, and yes, relief, for that attempt at solace. He had known from the beginning that he could only stall so long. The question was, now, that as rough as he felt, as wrecked as he was— would he be able to actually change anything? Even the one thing it now seemed he'd be forced to change— could he even begin to try?

Did he even want to pretend to try?

He wasn't given the choice.

"Let's try it again," said Cato. He even managed to sound as though there would be no penalties for failure.

Eames laughed, brittle and fracturing and glassy, and focused on the feeling of Arthur's arms around him, of his own around Arthur's whip-cord tight, furious body; focused on the thoughts of all that they would unleash upon Cato and Lukho and Station Nine as soon as this was done— or rather, as soon as he could convince them it was done. "Oh, yeah, do let's," he said brightly.

And as quickly as that, he was back on the Boneyard.

_This isn't a lab. This is a —_

_Morgue._

And this time, when he saw them walking around him, he didn't even try not to mourn openly for the dead.

But he couldn't change anything. And he didn't try.

_Ghost,_ Cato had called him, but that was wrong. There were ghosts, yes, hundreds of them, but he wasn't one of them.

To be one of them, he would have had to be among them that day, and died alongside them.

And he hadn't been there. To his grief and his guilt, he hadn't been there, at the end.

And he had already come to terms with that, had come to terms with it long before he had become one of Saito's 'faces', had come to terms with it as he struggled to get to his feet in the dust of the Boneyard, scraped and bruised from Arthur's ability to fight fire with fire and on its own terms.

_"Fuck fate!"_ Arthur had told him furiously, _"or, if you believe in it so strongly, just accept that fate had something else in mind for you that didn't include being here to fucking die."_

He had accepted it. And he had made a promise in return for that acceptance.

_I want to wake up with you. I want you to wake up with me. I want the words we say when we awake and when we leave to be the first thing and the last thing we say to each other. Wake up with me._

He clung to that as fiercely as he did to the memory of truth that he had sealed into his battered mind, keeping it inviolate from time and pain and all that Cato's work could ever inflict upon him.

The truth he refused to change.

_You weren't there and nor was I._

_We weren't there. We weren't there. Not that day._

_We weren't there._

And they never would be. Eames would make sure of it.

~*~


	7. vi. {a poor man, without irony}

**vi: {a poor man, without irony}**

All of space stretched out beyond the view screens, dark and endless, but not nearly so empty as the poets wanted them to believe. Yes, if you went too far out of the normal shipping lanes or into the void between galaxies there wasn't much to see, but here, at the galactic core, every view was broken up by planets and stars and nebulae and people. Of course, it wasn't as if the people were just out space-walking, but their artifacts were everywhere— satellites, and laboratories, and stations— and running between them were ships, hundreds of millions of them, from each one of those hundreds of thousands of planets. 

At the moment, however, there was only one ship that Dominic Cobb cared about, a little Mandell with an aged-up paint job and the name _Firebrand_ emblazoned on her hull. 

He had sent out a message on all of their usual coded frequencies and had received no message from the ship that he _knew_ to be the one that Arthur and Eames had taken when they left Seisui, the one that he was currently following _away_ from Station Nine. The one that was not, damn it all, answering his hail-calls.

Giving up was not something that ever occurred to Dom— at least not when it came to events or other people. On himself, yes, and far too often for anyone around him to feel secure in his judgment, he knew that— but never on what had to be done. Never on those he loved. He hadn't even been able to give up on Mal, not when he was physically confronted by what she had become, not when he had discovered the lengths that everyone had been prepared to go to just to save him from _seeing_ what she had become— he could no more have given up on her than he could have commanded his own heart to stop beating, and the lords knew, there had been times when he had tried to do just that.

He knew that his single-mindedness was what most people called obsession. He didn't care. Those people didn't matter to him, because they didn't know him, and they didn't know what he was capable of, and they hadn't even got the faintest inkling of just how far he would happily go for the people who _did_ matter to him, and _did_ know him, and thought that what he was capable of was a gift, not a hindrance.

So he kept sending out his messages, and switched up frequencies, and changed codes, and kept following the Mandell's path, not so much hoping as fearing that he was right in judging that it was the ship that held the answers, and not the seven-times damned space-station.

And when the Mandell's path took him to the last place that either Arthur or Eames would want to be, he was even more certain that he was doing the right thing. 

_The Boneyard?_ Dom thought incredulously. If he hadn't thought something was wrong before, he would have known it for sure just by the destination. _Fuck..._

He picked a landing spot close enough to the Mandell that he could extend his ship's cloak to cover it if he wished, but far enough away that he would be able to exit his own ship without being seen. 

And a quick exit was exactly what he had in mind. He had to know if Eames and Arthur were alright, why they were there, if they had found another Psion, and most importantly, what in the seven cold hells they thought was so important that they had even considered going back to AR-724.

He could still remember quite clearly what Yusuf had said. That asking Ariadne to go back to Station Nine was the equivalent of asking Arthur to go back to the Boneyard. That it was easier to learn to live with the dead than with failure.

Dom, who lived with both and accepted them as part of his moral and physiological composition daily, was not entirely convinced of that, even though he accepted Yusuf was— and there was the other part to that equation, the equation which was not as simple as death subtracted from failure, the quadratic spin that even genius, cynical Yusuf had forgotten to include.

It was not only Arthur who had failed, in not being at the destruction of the planetoid. Eames's failure was just as great, and just as important, because Arthur had only failed on a very general level— to be there to do what he had train for, and kill as many Psions as he could find.

Eames had failed to be there to _be killed_ , and for all Yusuf's world-weariness, Dom thought that he was a very long way away from understanding just how that felt. Yusuf could guess at Arthur's feelings about the Boneyard, if nothing else then through Ariadne and her embattled generalship— but Dom knew that there was only one person who could ever have completely understood what it was like to fail through the act of having survived.

He had held her last words under his tongue, curled safe and hidden from the inferno that was her dying light, after all.

But, having done it once, Dom was more determined than ever not to allow a similar failure to ever affect himself or his 'family'. He opened a standard hail to the other ship.

"Firestorm, please respond. Firestorm, please issue a response per protocol B574."

The protocols were a farce, something that Ari had set up for all of them. They weren't actual protocols but jokes in numeric form, and Dom only understood about two in ten of them— although they had the distinct benefit of being completely unique, and at least if Arthur and Eames were on the ship they'd know it was him hailing and not someone pretending to be him.

Nothing. Not even the expected crackle and half-laughed curse that meant the Mandell's none-too-reliable comms were running off mods again and reacting badly to the equipment still left on the planetoid. Not even the auto-response of the AI. Nothing.

Dom tried very hard not to panic.

"Firestorm, please respond," he repeated, keeping his voice level, and then, cursing _himself_ , for being such an idiot as to forget that there were other code-words, more basic and older and possibly all that would be understood, if the ship was no longer helmed by anyone who knew him, changed his phrasing. "Firestorm, acknowledge."

His interface shifted. Only slightly, but it was there, and it was definite, and it was proof that someone had heard him. Someone who didn't intend him harm— or at least not yet— and was aiming for direct contact with him, and not his ship. Dom closed his eyes in relief and mouthed silent thanks to anything that was out there.

"Acknowledge," he repeated.

His interface stuttered, and Dom cursed. "Not now, not now, you fucking rotten—"

The stutter repeated, blinked, paused. Stuttered.

A pattern. A rhythm, and Dom _knew_ this, he was sure he knew this, and he couldn't quite remember —

And then he did. The Gates-Planet. Arthur and Eames, showing each other the code differences in what they tapped out sometimes, when they didn't want to be noticed or overheard.

The Psion codes— and those of the City-Corps. 

Arthur and Eames had worked out overlaps, little private codings that they only used for each other— and had also kept a lot of the more esoteric codes used by Psions and Corps separate, so that they had all been forced to learn the different signs. It was probably the first time that the two similar sign-code languages had ever been shared by the same group, but Dom, no historian or semiotics expert, had lost interest rapidly.

Dom hadn't kept up with his practice, but the little he had retained and memorized told him enough. He was talking to a Corps-soldier. And it wasn't Arthur.

_Acknowledged, receiving,_ his interface blinked at him, sending the message directly to his mind's eye. _Acknowledged, receiving. Respond in kind. Acknowledged, receiving. Respond in kind._

Irritated, relieved, and confused, Dom did just that. And hoped it wasn't a trick.

_Reply received, code non-standard but acceptable. Please identify._

And there it was, his bet had been seen and raised. What now? Go for broke or bluff?

Maybe a bit of both?

_Companion of owner— Firestorm,_ he tapped back. _Please locate and put in contact._

Let whoever that was make the next move. Dom was fairly confident that he couldn't be tracked even at this proximity.

He didn't have too long to wait, although the reply wasn't completely a surprise. _Owner— Firestorm— unavailable. Owner— Firestorm— on planet surface, exact location unknown._

Dom, about to demand why the fuck whoever this was couldn't have just said the last, managed to stop himself in time. This wasn't a bluff or a raise, it wasn't a repetition of a fact he could have worked out for himself— the owner's unavailable _because_ he's on the planet surface— no, whoever was talking to him was someone who knew a damn sight more about the Mandell's set-up than that, and was relying on him to actually pay attention. It was a statement. Whoever was talking to him knew that the Mandell had arrived on Station Nine with two owners. And now— one owner was unavailable. One owner was on the planet surface. 

Arthur and Eames had been separated. 

The only link Dom had to whatever was actually going on was communicating directly with his interface in a code he'd barely mastered.

And the word 'unavailable' had never seemed so lights-damned terrifying.

_Please approximate placement of owner on planet surface,_ he tried.

And got a string of numbers back.

"What the—" Dom growled to his empty ship. The numbers weren't co-ordinates. They weren't klicks. They weren't any fucking thing that made sense.

_Repeat transmission,_ he sent.

This time there were even more numbers, and they managed to look irritated.

And Dom, with the stark cold of shock rippling through his arms and hands, knew what they were.

Times and dates.

_Changing_ times and dates.

Which meant it was Eames who was on the surface, and he was time-jumping.

More numbers, the list growing each time.

But the co-ordinates hadn't changed.

Eames was time-jumping _on the Boneyard_ , and Arthur was 'unavailable', and the Mandell was talking to him in a code that even the City Corps hadn't used in years, and Dom was starting to go past worried into outright terrified.

_Think, Dom, think._ He tried to decide what it could all mean, what he had to do next.

There was only one leap he could make, and it was one of faith. He had to hope that whoever was piloting the Mandell had come here to find Arthur or Eames for benevolent reasons and not because of some revenge/phobic/insane plan. He wanted to beat his head against the deck plates. There were several very good reasons that Dom seldom gambled, but the main one was that he was pathetic at calculating the odds.

_Pilot— Firestorm— please identify and state purpose of journey._

The answer made absolutely no sense.

_Fischer. R. Corps Leader. Purpose— unknown. Aim— retrieval._

"Fucking _what_?" Dom asked the silence.

He'd got his question wrong, somehow, because weren't purpose and aim the same, even in Corps-talk? And why would _anyone_ put an extra letter into the fact they were a member of the former Fischer Corps? Why would anyone even lay claim to even _knowing_ the Fischer Corps, let alone having belonged to it, now that it was entirely destroyed? The soldiers who had worked at the top level of that particular group hadn't even _called_ themselves the Fischer Corps, they had called themselves the Gate-Corps —

And Dom smacked himself in the face with his free hand.

Not Fischer-no-apparent-reason-random-letter-Corps, leader.

Fischer, R. — Corps Leader.

"Seven hells," Dom whispered in a mixture of incredulous mirth and very real surprise.

Robert Fischer, a man everyone had thought killed during Cobol and Mal's takeover of the Gates-Planet, had survived. Survived, and somehow got to Station Nine— and now he had managed to commandeer the Mandell.

_Purpose— unknown._

"Yeah, no shit," Dom muttered.

_Aim— retrieval._

Dom started to smile.

_Pilot— Firestorm— identity and aim acknowledged,_ he sent back. _Purpose..._ He paused, and then grinned, unable to resist, because he was going to offer the one thing they had all held out hope for, when they first stole the Mandell from the Gates-Planet, and begun along the course which had led to Seisui, and Saito, and a world they had none of them dared even to imagine.

_Purpose— redemption,_ he finished up.

And waited for the reply.

_Purpose confirmed. Ally?_

Well, he could certainly use one or two, or a regiment, because whatever was going on with Eames, whether he was jumping willingly or unwillingly, Dom had a feeling that more was definitely better.

_Suggestion confirmed. Rendezvous, Firestorm hatch._

"All the lords and stars, I must really be insane," Dom thought as the pilot of the Mandell signaled back, _Confirmed rendezvous._

Dom stepped up and started the cycling of the hatch, thinking that at least Fischer, R. (and wasn't that a mind-fuck all by itself?) wouldn't be able to find his ship, if his aim was actually to set up with a fleet of stolen spacecraft.

After all, he reasoned, Saito had been incredibly generous to him, and he'd hate to pay him back by letting his beautiful new ship get stolen.

Even if it was by a Fischer-born pirate who, even if only by virtue of necessity, almost certainly _was_ the real thing, and decidedly not a member of the Pirates-Who-Aren't.

Dom snorted at that last thought. Assuming all went well, and he got back to Seisui with his intended cargo, he couldn't wait to tell Ariadne that he'd finally met an actual pirate.

_Or maybe,_ he thought with cautious hope, _I can bring him back to Seisui as well. And just introduce them._

It was an idea that kept his steps light as he cloaked his ship, and stepped out onto the dead ground of the Boneyard.

~*~

Breakfast was a meal that Saito often took in solitude. It helped him relax and calm his mind for the rigors of the day to come. Although he did, often, join the children for their morning meal, that was usually after his own solitary one. After the peacefulness he was much better able to deal with James's latest mad scheme, his own daughter's giggles, and Philippa's ever-changing personality, as she shifted dizzyingly between acting the child she actually was in one moment and asking questions that were far too old for her years in the next. The time of semi-contemplation, of peace and quiet that he had to himself before all that began, allowed him to enjoy, rather than resent, the chaos that they brought into his life; to perceive the happiness and the humor, rather than find the noise and emotion and movement of it all abrasive.

His solitary breakfasting habits were, therefore, inviolate and well known among his staff and his household and no one would think to interrupt him uninvited. Everyone, that was, except for Yusuf.

Saito supposed it shouldn't surprise him that Yusuf never waited for or even thought he needed an invitation, since the man didn't seem to operate on any sort of regular schedule at all— at least not one that wasn't comprised of 'on or off planet; working on new commission or resting'. Everything, as far as Yusuf and his internal clock were concerned, was a decidedly movable feast, and Saito was not the only one who had suffered from his erratic ideas of timekeeping.

On the other hand, Saito had not ever found the interruptions Yusuf inflicted on people anything to concern himself with, as they were more usually based on grabbing whoever was nearest to 'come and look at' something, or simply that whoever was being interrupted had the misfortune to be in the same room at the same time as Yusuf's continual monologue, and feel they should listen— something which was rarely profitable, usually frustrating, and often ended in threats of violence that were duly ignored.

Since he was unburdened with that sense of polite behavior, he was more likely to simply throw Yusuf out than try to follow whatever he was talking about— or redirect him to someone who at least had a vague working knowledge of what was so important this time. And since it never really seemed to matter _who_ Yusuf talked to, or rather at, this had never posed much of a problem to date.

This time, however, not only were the usual victims mostly absent, but Yusuf seemed to have actually _intended_ to seek him out. Which was disconcerting and annoying in equal measure.

"This is bad, Saito. At least I think it is. Surely he isn't doing this on purpose. Maybe it's a malfunction or, you know, one of those anomaly thingies..." Yusuf shook his wrist and frowned.

Saito paused, his tea cup raised half-way to his lips, "Perhaps, if you explained what you are concerned about, I might be able to offer a suggestion?"

_Or possibly not,_ Saito thought. Of all the things he knew about and understood in the vastness of the universes, mod technology was not something he was well versed in. Fortunately, he now had Dom and not so fortunately, Yusuf.

And at the moment, he only had the less preferable option.

"This," Yusuf said, shaking his wrist at Saito this time, instead of thin air, which while being a little more specific in direction, helped him understand precisely nothing at all, "this is either malfunctioning, in which case every single mod I have created can no longer be traced accurately, or the mod I created for Arthur has broken down and fused the entire system, which should not be possible but I might accept as a hypothesis, or the laws of time and space are being broken again, and have I mentioned how annoying I find it when that happens?"

Saito sighed, and put down his cup. "Again, please, and apply logic. Also, for the sake of my understanding, a little structural argument. Possibly, if you can bring yourself to an approximation of lateral thought, a description as to what exactly you are referring to, although I recognize that may be asking too much."

Yusuf waved his wrist in front of Saito's eyes this time, in what was almost certainly not a new and annoying method of greeting him. "This," he repeated, in the tones of someone talking to an idiot, "is my mod tracker."

"I see," said Saito, who didn't. "Which means?"

"Every temp-mod I create and which is in operation should, and I repeat _should_ , show up on the inset-lights."

Saito looked again. "Which lights?" he asked warily.

"Exactly!" Yusuf yelled. "Exactly, there are no lights, it is as though I have never created a single temp-mod in all my time here— and that is impossible!"

"Perhaps your power source is faulty?" 

Yusuf rolled his eyes, "Are you asking me if my batteries have gone dead?"

Saito just smiled and took another sip of his tea. That had, basically, been what he was asking but he wasn't going to show the extent of his ignorance by confirming it.

"This isn't a torch, Saito. It runs off of the natural electrical impulses sent from my brain. As long as I'm alive, it has power. "

"But it's still not working?"

"That's what I said." Yusuf threw his hands up. "Not working. Which is impossible."

"And yet," Saito said, looking at Yusuf's decidedly unilluminated wrist, "that appears to be the case."

" _Yes_ ," Yusuf growled, "I _know_."

A feeling of miserable premonition overcame Saito, and he resisted the urge to put his head in his hands and groan. "How many temp-mods are the off-planet members of your team currently wearing?"

Yusuf looked at him flatly. "Enough," he said. "And even if they'd chosen to power them off, they'd still show as being technically operational."

"Ah. And— forgive me— I take it you do not actually believe that whatever it is you made for Arthur is powerful enough to have caused your entire system to malfunction, do you?"

"No," Yusuf bit out.

"Which leaves the alteration of the laws of time and space as your remaining working theory. Correct?"

Yusuf didn't even bother answering him this time. He just kept looking at Saito.

Who wished he had never got up at all that morning.

"Tell me, Yusuf, would the employment of a certain time-jack cause this... ah... anomaly?"

"Yes," Yusuf said, "and then again, no, no it wouldn't. It couldn't. Unless."

Saito waited, but Yusuf, unusually for him, seemed to have come to a complete stop, midway through a thought-process.

"Unless _what_ , Yusuf? My mod only allows me to enter computer systems, it does not enable me to read minds."

"Unless," Yusuf said dismally, "someone has over-ridden the time-jack itself, and is forcing the jumps."

Saito stared at him. "And that isn't good? I assume that this would be necessary, should Eames have needed to—"

"Yeah, no," Yusuf cut him off. "That? That would be fine, I could trace that, because it would still be linked to any work I've done. This would have to be done by someone else. Someone who has found a means of control."

"Rendering its use involuntary," Saito said evenly. "Yes. I see."

And unfortunately, this time he _did_ see.

He was beginning to get mildly alarmed by his vision.

"We have to find Eames. Now. Where's Dom?"

Saito blinked at Yusuf's sudden topic change. "Dominic is in a much better situation to assist you. He has been tracking both Eames and Arthur as well as he can from space. I thought he told you he was leaving?"

Yusuf shook his head, and then nodded. "Yes. Well, no, he was going to get them, I thought, meet up with them somewhere, damn it, I should have had the sense to ask, but now you say he's actually gone to Station Nine?"

Saito scowled, "Is that where they have gone? That was most unwise. And Dominic has not checked in with me this morning, as of yet."

"You know that this could mean that his cloaking extension is no longer working either?" Yusuf waved his wrist around again. Saito took a moment to wish he would stop. It was beginning to make him dizzy and annoyed. "And if he's still near the Station that would be a bad thing."

"And your talent for understatement is improving every day." 

Saito frowned to himself and began planning. Yusuf might not be able to track Dom by his mod enhancer, but Saito could most certainly track his ship.

"Saito," Yusuf said, and grabbed him by _his_ wrists, which was definitely not something Saito felt he had in any way encouraged. "Saito, listen. I think I have something."

"I begin to see why Arthur always claims it is syphilis," Saito said irritably, pulling himself free. "And that you earned it."

"No, this— your mod. The mod Dom made for you."

"Yes, I am aware, I was thinking of—"

"Yeah, yeah, tracking Dom, of course, obviously, but I don't think you have to."

"Excuse me?" Saito fought and conquered the urge to start shouting. He was almost impressed with his own control.

Yusuf grinned at him, though, slightly manic and very very pleased with himself.

"Ari gave them the Mandell," he said then. "And you're still linked in."

"Very good, Yusuf, yes. I am. Or could be, if I chose. But if they are no longer _on_ the Mandell, I fail to see how that will—"

"They don't have to be," Yusuf said. "That's the best bit."

"They don't," Saito said flatly. He refused to admit how confused he was.

Yusuf grabbed him by the wrist again, and pulled him to his feet, towing him out of the room at a speed which Saito found more than a little undignified.

"Do you mind not—"

"This," Yusuf said, moving even faster, "is something you are going to enjoy."

"I doubt it."

"Oh, you will." Yusuf was still beaming. "You loved being an AI before, didn't you? And I bet you missed it, even if you never said. Well, I'm going to make you very very happy, Saito."

"Oh no," Saito protested involuntarily. "Oh no, you cannot be thinking of—"

"Yeah," Yusuf said, and he didn't sound manic or pleased with himself at all any more. He sounded serious and determined and far more worrying than when he was at the point of once more extolling his genius. "I am, I can, and you will."

~*~

Aside from being extremely dusty and rectangular rather than square, the room they were now locked in wasn't much different from their 'cell' on Station Nine. It had a bed, that Eames was currently stretched out on in exhausted sleep, and a hard metal chair as its only furnishings. It did connect to an even tinier bathroom with a sink and a toilet which, thank all lords, by some miracle seemed to still function.

What the room did not have was room to pace, a loss that Arthur was feeling quite strongly at the moment.

He hadn't realized how much better he thought when he moved, or at least had the option of moving, until their escape from the Gates-Planet, and their enforced confinement on the Mandell while they waited for Eames to fix things up for them on Station Nine.

And at least then he had been given a little room to move backward and forward, if he needed to. Not far, but enough to give him breathing space. Here there was hardly even that, and he had the terrible feeling it was what used to pass for a Psion's single quarters; might even have been thought of as fairly well-appointed.

But then, the Psions, as far as he had been able to tell from Eames, thought better when they stayed still, were unaffected by small spaces and narrow areas, considered any space around them irrelevant for what they needed to do and how they focused. It was where they were _headed_ that mattered, never where they actually were.

And after watching Eames's forced, unrelenting time-jumps, Arthur could see only too well why being able to stay in one place, no matter how small or confining, would be seen only as respite, and not as the endurance test he was currently undergoing.

Right now he was just happy that Eames normally slept like a stone once he got comfortable— although his comfort often meant Arthur was used as the human equivalent of a pillow or cuddle toy— and that even with the pain Eames had to be in, this was no exception to the rule. Arthur wasn't a doctor, but he'd had enough medic training to know that Eames was probably suffering from a concussion, a broken arm and most probably at least two broken ribs. He'd only let him drift off to sleep after assuring himself that the concussion was minor and that Eames would wake up again.

He was very carefully not thinking about the fact that none of that was going to matter to Cato one bit. As soon as he worked through his latest set of results, and even half-managed to work out how Eames was resisting any actions that resulted in the incremental changes that would bring about the landslide reversal of the Psions' fate, Cato would be operating the time-jack again.

For the first time, Arthur was beginning to understand just why the Psions weren't thought of as human. Cato might breathe the same air as them, might need to sleep and eat, his blood probably pumped from his heart like any other man's, but Arthur was in no doubt of what he really was.

Cato was a monster. And it wasn't becoming a Psion that had made him so.

It was how he had been born.

"Yer head's g'n explode," Eames's weary, slurred voice came from the bed, "thinkin' too loud."

"Well, one of us needs to and you're in no shape for it," Arthur was immediately at Eames's side checking him over and trying to make him more comfortable. "Not that you ever are."

"Tha's it. Hit me wh'n 'm down."

"I keep hoping it will knock some sense in." In spite of their normal snark, Arthur knew his voice was anything but normal— soft and gentle, where it usually would have be sharp and cutting.

"Need it th'n. 'S all b'n knocked out."

"How can you tell?" Arthur asked mildly, and got a decidedly lopsided glare for his efforts. "Yeah, okay, so apart from the splitting headache and not being able to see out of one eye, how can you tell?"

He wasn't sure whether Eames was pretending to consider that, in the spirit of attempting normality, or really was trying to work out the answer. Both options were more than a bit worrying, being as neither should have involved more than surface brain activity.

He was starting to wonder what time-jumping _did_ to the brain, never mind the body— which was perfectly fucking obvious, so he didn't need to wonder at all on that score— when Eames said a lot more clearly,

"Still not there. Wasn'. Promised."

And Arthur really, really wished he didn't know what that meant. He didn't want to think that he was having any effect on a made and remade decision that even he was beginning to wonder about, and he didn't want to believe that he was being weighed up in the balance of importance against the resurrection of a planet, and he didn't want to look too carefully at the fact that he hoped to every known power and void in existence that in the end, he was going to matter more.

Arthur knew what his decision would be if the situation were reversed. There had been no one in his life that he cared about— loved— the way he did Eames, whether he ever said the words aloud or not. Given a choice between reviving those who had already died and Eames, Arthur would choose Eames hands down. Selfishly, he hoped that Eames felt the same. Unselfishly, he wanted Eames to choose what would bring him the most happiness, even if it meant they would once again be on opposite sides of a war that would not have ended on AR-724. 

Even if it meant they would never have met.

It was a chilling thought, and deep in the dark recesses of Arthur's mind, a tiny voice was urging him to wrap himself around Eames and beg him, beg something, anything, anyone, _choose me, choose me, lords please, please, let him choose me._

Instead he smoothed a gentle hand over Eames's face, "And neither was I. I'll just— just wait here for you... until then."

_Always_ , he thought, because some part of him would remain unchanged, no matter what Eames chose, no matter what Cato forced on time and chance and place, some part of him would always be waiting, held forever in a moment in time that nothing could ever touch or alter.

He had no idea what kind of temptation this chance, repeated over and over again, was presenting to Eames. He couldn't understand, he would never understand, just what it meant to hold time in the hollow of his hand, and be able to decide what should be done with it, what could be done with it. He would never know what it felt like to grasp at infinity.

He only knew what it was like to love someone who made that choice, each and every moment that he lived; what it was like to sit in a tiny narrow room and watch that choice be at the forefront of someone's mind; watch it be made again and again with every breath, every holo-like flicker of existence, every flare of the time-jack into an impossible power.

Arthur's fused mod had condemned him to see the things that no-one else could, long before. But it had never hurt this much, it had never mattered this much that all he could do was stand to the side and never know anything but the reality of _now, here_.

And for a brief, appalling moment, he wondered if it would be better if Eames did what Cato wanted, and changed everything; better if they never met, better not to feel like this.

He slid his hand into Eames's just as the door slid open and Cato's goons looked in, followed by Cato himself. "Time to try again."

~*~

Robert Fischer was nothing like and yet everything like Dom imagined. There was a strength in him that even his feelings of guilt could not overwhelm. Dom had expected arrogance though, in place of the evident, quiet thoughtfulness, and an innate sense of command rather than an ability for surprisingly calm, unsubservient acquiescence. The acquiescence made sense though, in this instance, since neither one of them had much idea of what exactly was going on— and until they could sort that and make a play, they both were going to have to compromise and work together.

The guilt was a little more difficult to understand. Dom had an image of everyone connected with Fischer and the Gates-Corps built up in his head, and the fact that Robert felt guilt for the things that his family, his company, had done to so many people, to _Mal,_ simply did not fit in with that view.

"Is there something in particular that I should look out for?"

Dom grunted back at him as he crawled back out from under the bunk, "I don't know. I'm not really that familiar with how an ex-Corps soldier would think. If you were going to hide something, hide it securely, but make it easy enough for someone who knows you to find it, what would you do?"

"I wouldn't be hiding it at all, I'd get rid of it," Robert said a bit blankly, and then, "Oh, right, you mean if you want it found?"

Really, Dom was beginning to wonder if the man was not so much acquiescent and guilt-stricken as half-witted. "Yeah," he said slowly, wondering if this was how Yusuf felt _all the time_ when he tried to explain things to people. "Something you want found. By someone you know."

"But they didn't," Robert said, equally carefully. "They didn't know. Or when they did, they didn't come back here, they didn't get a chance to. I was the next one on the ship. So I'm not sure what you're after."

"Some kind of fucking answer would be nice," Dom snarled, and tried to modulate his tone a bit better, because the fact that Arthur and Eames were somewhere on the Boneyard was not Robert's fault. "Sorry. Sorry."

"No, that's fine..." Robert said, tapping his upper lip with his index finger. It was a habit that Dom guessed would get very annoying very quickly. "I mean, you'd store it, wouldn't you?"

"Huh?"

"Back up storage. If you— if they had an actual plan, they weren't just guessing, they'd put it in storage. For someone they know to find. Right? On the system?"

Dom wished Robert didn't feel he had to phrase everything as a question. It made _him_ feel like he had to answer.

"Um, possibly. Yeah. Why isn't it coming up on the AI, then?"

Robert looked at him incredulously.

"Because I _overrode_ the AI to _fly the ship?_ "

"Oh," said Dom, feeling like an idiot, because yes, right, that had been why they'd had to communicate the first time with direct interfacing, wasn't it. "Er. Yes. Let me just—" He reconnected the coding for the AI to the ship's interface, logging it through his own code to begin with and planning to divert it as soon as things were up and running. "Yeah, there we go, that should _for fuck's sake Saito what what what —!_ "

"Dominic," Saito said, sounding irritable. "May I remind you that turning everything off when I operate via a permanent interface is an exceptionally bad idea?"

"Tell me," Dom said to Robert, "that I'm hallucinating. Please."

"I wish I could?" Robert said, staring at the screen. "Wow. Um. Is that Saito?"

"Yeah, it's hi—"

"Dominic, why is Robert Fischer on the Mandell?" Saito's tone was sharp. It was the closest that Dom had ever him come to yelling.

"Oh, yeah. He was tracking Arthur and—"

"Tracking? For what purpose?"

"I might be able to tell you, if you'd just stop cutting me off."

"Look," Robert interrupted, "would you like me to leave so you can have this conversation? Saito has no reason to trust any of my family, I'm sure."

"No I fucking well do _not_ want you to leave," Dom almost yelled. "Saito, shut up. Robert, _stay where you are._ And someone get me Yusuf."

"I am here," said the radio. Robert jumped like a startled rabbit.

"Your fucking _ship,_ , man," he squeaked.

"Yeah, I need an upgrade," Dom snapped. "And an update. Saito. What the fuck. Are you doing. Back in the Mandell's system."

"That would be me," said the Yusuf-radio.

"No, that's definitely Saito," Dom said grimly.

"I put him back in the system after all the temp-mods crashed," Yusuf continued, and Dom clutched at his hair.

"Okay, Yusuf, shut up, Saito, you can talk, Robert, yeah, same as before, stay there _and stop fucking mumbling._ "

Saito scowled for a moment before he continued, "Thank you so much, Dominic, for your permission."

"Sorry. I just didn't want things to get more out of hand." Dom shrugged.

His words seemed to at least partly placate Saito. "It appears that Mr. Eames has managed to get himself into a jam. Do you know precisely where he is?"

"I do... generally. It might be more accurate to say that I know where, but I'm not sure about when." 

"Ah, then you do realize the difficulties." Saito nodded. "Yusuf believes that someone is repeatedly triggering his jack in a specific pattern."

"Someone? You don't think Eames has control then?"

"No," the Yusuf-radio crackled. "I think he found the other Psion."

" _That's_ why they —!" Robert started, and then cut himself off. "Sorry."

"Yeah, that's who they thought you were, glad you're not, moving on," Dom said quickly. "Okay, great. So this other Psion's triggering the time-jack. Question for the peanut gallery, yes, those of you who can't shut up when told to, Yusuf, that means you. Probability range of unavailable and untraceable meaning 'very fucking dead'?"

He couldn't get detached enough to ask the question outright, and he couldn't say anyone's name, and he was not designed by anything to be a leader, so why, why did it always seem to be him who ended up in these positions?

Yusuf was silent.

Saito froze as though his coding had been disconnected.

And it was, unbelievably, Robert who replied. "Your City-Corps man, you mean? He's alive."

"How can you be sure?" That was Yusuf, but Robert only shrugged, diffident as ever, but oddly certain beneath that.

"Because whatever this other Psion is trying to change? Nothing has, yet."

Yusuf's exhalation of relief sent everyone into a world of painful feedback, and Dom, cursing and relieved at once, nodded. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, okay, I'll buy that."

"Dominic, you cannot be certain that—"

"That if Arthur was dead, Eames would have already torn every world we know down to component atoms and none of this conversation would even be happening?" Dom almost laughed. "Yeah, actually. Yeah, I can. I can be absolutely fucking certain."

"Do you really think that he would be that out of control?" Saito demanded, sounding almost personally insulted.

"Do _you_ know what it is to be a lover? To be half of a whole?" Dom retorted, and shook his head. "Yes, absolutely he could... he would."

Dom knew that, oh lords and lights, how he knew it, he knew it painfully and wholeheartedly. If he could have torn all of the Fischer Corps and Cobol and the Gates-Planet itself down to the ground when they took Mal from him with their endless space-control battles, he would have without a moment of hesitation.

"Yes," Saito said, and he was as close as he ever came to smiling, though his voice was as solemn and steady as ever, "yes, of course. You are right. Yes."

Saito knew, too. Saito, who had built up a planet and enforced a new kind of peace for the sake of his love, would know the other side of that coin as well as anyone.

"Hah," said the Yusuf-radio, sounding smug and delighted enough that Dom could almost see his friend folding his hands in front of him, and leaning back in satisfaction. "What price invisible armies, hey?"

"You're all fucking batshit," was all Robert said. "Can we go back to facts, now?"

"Fine. Look, Robert, you were on Station Nine. Do you know this Psion— Cato, right?— at all? Can you give us any insight?"

"Yes," Robert began. "About that... it might be my fault that your friend was captured. I meant it for the best, really."

The last bit of his speech was cut off the voiced of those around him and Dom had to quiet everyone down in order for him to continue. 

"Cato is a Psion, obviously, and he was looking for others of his race, just as, I'm sure, Eames has been. He told me that he was afraid of just approaching Eames because of Arthur."

"But he approached you?" 

"I was City-Corps, too, sort of. Just— Gates-Corps is different in general, _was_ different, sorry. All of it got taken to a different level than Arthur ever had to deal with. And I was management... which puts me above the petty squabbles and battles between sides. I directed, I didn't interact."

"So you would have seemed safe," Dom said. Robert shrugged, and winced.

"Yeah. I— maybe? Maybe he was playing me. Look, I didn't care much, okay? I worked with the salvagers, I bought what I needed, I tried not to think. And I really didn't fucking think about this place." He gestured at the Mandell's tiny windows, out to the Boneyard. "It was a colossal screw-up. Yeah, yeah, I know, we acted on the Gates like it was this huge damned victory, up the Horn and the Onyx, down with the monsters. _You_ know," he said to the Yusuf-radio, which sighed in agreement. "It wasn't, though. Just an order gone wrong. So we made the best of it."

"You annihilated an entire people," Dom said in quiet horror, "and you call what you did _making the best of it_?"

"Boom," Yusuf said into the silence, "and aren't the sparkles pretty."

"I was getting out before Cobol ever took our Corps out of the quadrant," Robert said. "And I don't know who gave your friends the idea that I was their lost Psion, but I've never hidden my ash-marks. Because they're not. They're ink. Why would I try and hide that?"

"Guilt?" Saito asked coldly.

Robert's smile was twisted. "Yeah," he said. "Exactly. So why would I hide that, either?"

"And this Cato would have known that," Saito said. Robert nodded.

"Everyone knew that," he said simply. "Everyone who came to Station Nine. And I thought Cato needed help. So I gave it to him. I gave him what I thought I could."

"He played you like he thought you'd played the Psions," Dom said, understanding.

"Yeah," Robert agreed. "And I worked that part out just a bit too late."

And now they were on a planet of dust and bone-cinders and flesh-ash, because none of them, none of them except Arthur, knew just what the dust and the ash of the Boneyard truly meant to the Psions. To the rest of them, it was guilt and loss and grief, but to Eames— and thus to Arthur— it was a graveyard, a charnel house— and a lasting memorial. It was the horizon that rose up in reds and purples and gaudy orange, and faded to show the stars that they all loved.

It was the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. Vanished armies and old houses and air-preserved-bodies, held together by that very airlessness and ultimately dissolving when that vacuum was broken, crumbling before their eyes into dust, into nothing, into a sigh in the stillness, nothing left but the sound of memories fading and regrets that descended to take their place.

Crumbling citadels and vanished armies and a lost people...

_... charred letters, faded heliotrope, rose petals fallen from a dead hand..._

Regrets and memories, those were things that Dom knew about. But now he had to turn all of them into a plan so that regrets and memories didn't turn into dust and sorrow. 

At least he wasn't alone. He had Robert and Yusuf and, thank all lords, Saito. Surely they could come up with something.

Something that, even if it couldn't change what had been done to the Psions, could bring those Dom loved back home.

Back to Seisui.

~*~

The sands shifted slightly under their feet as they walked toward the main entrance of the underground complex. The going was tough, the damage in that area much more complete, the sand burned to glass in spots and mixed with plascrete and metal in others. The bare bones of support structures poked out of the sides of blast pits and the ghostly remains of vehicles and ships of different sizes lay here and there, tossed aside by the powers of concussive force. The Boneyard's ground was the Psions' graveyard, and these were her monuments to them.

"This will be better. Closer to the action. More likely to have to make chances if you're in direct danger."

_Fuck,_ was all that Eames could think.

He wasn't sure how much more his brain could take physically, never mind what was happening to his mind. Every jump rattled things inside his skull, bruised the inside of it. He knew that one of his eyes was already halfway to being completely blown out, that this was something worse than the concussion it felt like, and that every jump through time was compounding whatever the damage was, every return to the starting point was tearing something intrinsic somewhere inside him.

He was already thinking on two different levels; one an oddly clear and focused depth, where he could understand and theorize and knew just what he had to try and do to get out of this, just how damaged he was; the other a scrambled, code-broken mess that made even single words almost impossible to vocalize, a complete disconnect.

It was getting to the point where they were about to start bleeding over into each other, and he wasn't sure if he was going to make anything at all, never mind chances, when that happened.

"You can't keep doing this," That was Arthur's voice. He was on Eames's bad side, protecting his weakness as he always did. "Can't you see what's happening? If you get him killed where will you be? No jack and no Eames."

The pained grunt and silence that followed only served to show how crazy Cato was— no one hit Arthur and got away with it. No one.

But Cato had. Cato had got away with it because Arthur was holding himself back, trying not to make things worse.

Something would have to be done... and if he could get his brain working properly he just might remember what that was.

_I wasn't there,_ he told himself in a fragmented attempt at stability as the time-jack flared up again, a last clutch at sanity as the world dissolved around him and began to remake itself into a new hell. _I can't change anything, no matter what Cato does or when or where he sends me, because I wasn't there._

Aure's ghost-like, dust-thickened, terrified screaming filled his ears again as the past solidified around him once more, filled his ears and his eyes and ran down his nerve-endings into a bitter taste, and _synesthesia_ the deeper, hidden part of his mind registered, _I can't —_

He focused, tried not to

_taste_

hear what he had never actually witnessed, only imagined, dreamed of, mourned.

The ground shook, and he stumbled, curling up as he fell down into the harsh-dark shadow of a wall. There was a flicker, like a jump in a replay, but it wasn't Cato calling him back. It was something... 

"You've got to get up, _mon chéri._ It is not safe." 

He looked around but there was nothing, nothing but dust and concussion and —

Eames ran. Ran from the destruction and fire, the man-created desolation. He could see the ships overhead, small and fast and—

and the Boneyard was bright, the sun blinding and reflective as it shone down on glass-sand and destruction— 

"Hang on, Eames... please..." 

He wanted to, for Arthur, but there was no time... and nothing but time —

"There is only time. We move through it. You know this. Psion."

Mal's last words to him, but he was _hearing_ them, hearing them _now_ , and that wasn't possible, that couldn't be possible —

A hand in his, small and cold like Ariadne's, but unscarred, the fingers longer, the grip less determined and more desperate.

_Your hand in my hand._

"Look at me."

No, no, _he_ had said that. He had said that on the Mandell, after Cobol's destruction. Not Mal. Mal had never —

"Look at me, Psion."

If he did, the world would end.

" _Look at me!_ "

The world would end.

_There is only time._

He was supposed to change that. Supposed to stop the world ending— no. _No._ His choice. His choice. The world had to end. 

The world would end.

Again, and again, and as many times as he could bear it before his body gave in and he joined the dust of the Boneyard —

_Your hand in my hand._

Phantom or illusion, Mal was holding on to him, he could feel it, he could hear her, they were two distinct things, they were real, they were there, and Mal had never been on the Boneyard, and he had not been present at its destruction and —

Eames looked up.

And saw the Mal he had never known, the Mal from the holo-vid captures around her home on the Gates-Planet, Mal without her high-necked clothing, and wearing her jewel-gleaming mods on one arm alone, none of the filigreed glow visible on breast or throat or ear, Mal in a summer dress and her eyes very wide and very young.

"Psion," she said, and her voice was very kind, and very soft, and completely without fear.

_You weren't there and nor was I._

_We weren't there. We weren't there. Not that day._

_We weren't there._

And neither was Mal.

Or was she? She was there and holding his hand, and yet somehow nothing was changed or changing.

"There is only time. We move through it," Mal said again. "I know what you are and you— I think you know me. Let me give you strength."

"I... I have something to do. Cato. I—"

"Even that would be a change, chéri."

There was another blast, and it rocked both of them this time. "You have to go. You have to be safe... for Dom and..."

"You mean I will not be?" She was smiling.

Eames paused at that, and forced linear thought through the waves of his burning mind. 

And he remembered. 

He remembered meeting Mal for the first time, how he had thought for a second, as Arthur introduced her, that she too could see through holos, because Arthur had given his name, and—

_She knew it already,_ Eames realized. _She couldn't see what I looked like, that wasn't it at all, she recognized my name._

He remembered the— what? Vision? Hallucination?— that he had seen on one of the other jumps, of Mal with the child who was both no-one he knew and Philippa at once, Mal saying "That's Eames, remember? The magician?"

"I have not met you yet, not as you will meet me," Mal was saying. "But I will. And that has not changed, because you still know me. This happened. This is happening. This is where you will have been, on the day your planet died. Here and not here. With me and not yet meeting me. You changed time before it happened. You are changing time now. This is what will have happened, because you are not here and nor am I, and you will be here and so will I. We will meet, and you have met me already, and I know this because you know Dom, and you know me, and there is so much wonder waiting for me, there is so much I will have, and it will be so hard to wait! All I know now is none of the wonder yet, only the knowledge that I traveled to see a war, and I found you instead. I know that here is your loop, here is what I came to see, here is time, here is the change you made, here is your choice, and you made it when you looked at me and knew me. I know that here is what has always been. Here is time, and we are moving through it, Psion, and I will remember for you, and remember you, until it becomes your _here_ and your _now._ I will remember until you know."

Her hands were on either side of his face, now, and her mods were glowing brightly in his peripheral vision, and she was healing whatever had been done to him, she was undoing all Cato's damage from the inside out, unraveling time and pain and reversing the irreversible.

"My name's Eames," he said, as warm tendrils curled through his blood and bones, knitting up damage and compressing swollen tissue as they went. He said his name because he had to have told her, here on the Boneyard; she couldn't have known it unless he had told her, and so he had to say it, so that she would know it when she met him again, even though she wouldn't know his face. 

He couldn't even remember what face he had been wearing, when he first met her. It wasn't important. But that she should know he might look different _was_ important, and he spilled out words as fast as he could, trying not to waste whatever time they had left here. "I'm a holo-master, I work for Dom. And— I made a promise. Before I came here, I made a promise that I would always come back, that I would wake up with someone. Mal—"

She lowered her hands.

"You are not only a holo-master. You are not only a Psion. You are these and more, too, because you are a magician," she said. "And I will remember your promise. And you."

Eames remembered, too, remembered Mal dying amidst her wires, an unholy icon, standing against fate.

_"You promised someone else,_ frère, before either of us."

She had always known.

She had always remembered.

This had always happened.

And of course, of course, when he had first met Mal, that had been her primary use of all her modifications, to travel the worlds, to go where she pleased; computers and holos and ship-travel all at her command, to take her wherever she most wished to be, right then and right there.

Mal the adventurer, Mal the traveler. No wonder she had come from choice to the centre of the worst war the Gates-Planet had known.

Where else would she have been, that day? Where else could she possibly have been, if any of them had stopped to think about it? She could never have resisted it.

"You have to leave, Mal. Take a shuttle. Get out of here. This... no one is going to survive it."

"I will," she replied simply. "And I will not be afraid or worried, because I will know you. And we shall be friends, _amis,_ yes?"

"Yes." There was another concussion and he was torn away, rolling down to the bottom of one of the dunes. Rolling until—

"No! You've still got it wrong!" Cato was leaning over him. Eames could see Arthur behind him, struggling against the two men holding him.

"I really haven't," Eames said, and took a moment to enjoy the fact that he didn't hurt, that he wasn't dying, that he knew all of his five senses from one another, and that sand was incredibly fucking irritating.

And that he had seen Mal, he had seen Mal and his last memory of her was no longer a shell of light and power, but the Mal Dom still mourned, the Mal who had been loved beyond worlds, whose first perm-mods had been made to travel and to heal and to wonder at the glories of all life could hold.

Mal who had saved him, the first and last time they had ever met and would ever meet.

"Again," Cato said, and Eames pushed himself up on his elbows without a single twinge from his ribs or his head or his arms, and laughed in his face.

"Fuck off," he said cheerfully. "Also? No."

~*~

It was fortunate that sand and hills muffled noise, because Dom knew he wasn't exactly the most stealthy person around. He was definitely a mod-creator, not a spy, and his movements reflected that. Robert had already scowled at him and shushed him several times, but it was really a pointless gesture, because although he knew he was doing it wrong, he had no idea how to do it right.

Robert, on the other hand, for all his claims about only having been management during his time at the head of the Gates-Corps, and his not very subtle hints about only having even got that position due to his name, was moving absolutely silently (bar the irritated shushing) and managed to give the impression of having turned into just another drifting sand-shadow.

Dom, who was focusing more on not treading on his own feet when he tried to put them down quietly, was suffering from a sort of frustrated envy that had nothing to do with covetousness and a great deal to do with wondering why he seemed to surround himself with people who had every single skill he was never going to attain.

He did, however, manage to stop instantly, freezing in his tracks when Robert held his hand up in the proper signal. Stop was pretty much stop, whether verbal or with a hand signal.

"They're just around the curve," Robert whispered curtly. "You go that way. I'll circle around to the right and try to get behind them."

Dom nodded, holding his handgun at his side as he slowly advanced.

He heard voices up ahead. One particularly loud one was berating someone, "No! You've still got it wrong!" 

"I really haven't." The reply was typical snarky Eames, even if his voice seemed a bit rough.

Silence, and then the voice spat out —

"Again."

And there was something, something singing through the air, something Dom could almost touch, it was so strong, and he knew that it was time, that Cato was pulling at time, and using Eames to do it, and what if this time he—

Like a wind suddenly dropping on a hot day, the feeling stopped, left the air, left Dom's skin, and the familiar sound of Eames's slightly mad laughter replaced it.

"Fuck off," he said, and his voice was smoother this time, evening out around the edges into its usual half-slur. "Also? No."

"Not s'wise," Cato answered him back. "But black 'n' blue suits the toy... 'r mebbe red?"

"Yeah, not happenin'." Eames sounded positive. And mildly amused, which was never a good sign.

Dom peered around the corner of the mound of sand. Arthur was pinned face-down on the ground, a size fifteen boot and the man attached to it, in the middle of his back. Then suddenly he wasn't. The man fell to the ground, grabbing his neck, blood squirting out from between his fingers. 

Arthur had obviously been prepared to take advantage of any opening, because as soon as the weight was gone he spun and flipped, scissor-kicking the one of the other men, taking him down in an instant.

That left one more— and Cato himself.

"Warned you," Eames said almost dreamily to Cato, who was standing very still, and whose frozen position seemed to have become contagious, because not even Arthur was moving.

"You know," Robert said in horribly similar if much more shaken tones, forcing Dom to look at him, "that's the first time I've killed someone? And hey, look, if you throw a knife holding the blade, you cut your hand, did you know that?"

"Yeah," Dom said a bit helplessly. "More I kind of guessed, but yeah."

"Huh," said Robert. "Never did that in training. Weird, right?"

Dom gave up on him as seven kinds of utterly useless, even, apparently, at being quiet when he wasn't concentrating on being some kind of weird sand-ghost, and turned his attention back to the frozen tableau in front of him.

"Eames," Arthur said, still not moving, his hands open at his sides and his voice very quiet and very steady. "Don't."

_Don't what?_ Dom thought madly, and then froze into immobility himself as the time-jack on Eames's shoulder flared up into wild pulses of virulent orange, glaring off the grey dust and the dead-ash sands.

"You were there when it began," Eames said, and took a step toward Cato. "I wasn't."

Cato was staring at him, still not moving, but it wasn't Arthur's unflinching, rock-steady determination that was keeping him immobile. It was the paralyzation of a wolf with the steel jaws of a trap around its neck. 

"You ran," Eames continued. "I didn't have the choice." 

"I was _disabled_ —!" Cato said, and Eames closed the last of the distance between them, and put his hands almost gently on Cato's shoulders.

"You were there when it began," he repeated, "and like everyone else who was there, there's one thing can't be changed."

" _Don't,_ " Arthur repeated, and then, hopelessly, earnestly, the sound of his voice like a prayer for the dying, "please. Please don't."

Dom wasn't sure what he meant by that. He thought Arthur probably wasn't sure, either. He rather thought that whatever had happened on the Boneyard had made every certainty of cause and effect into as much of a question as Robert's bastardized, answer-requiring sentences.

The time-jack wasn't even pulsing now, burning like a steady, malevolent sun, and its light half-blinding Dom, so that he had to squint to make out the shapes in front of him. But it made no sound, and Eames's words were clear and carrying.

" _You belong dead,_ " he said in a voice that Dom knew he would hear again and again in his nightmares, and the light and power from the time-jack burned his eyes until he had to close them, and there was something that was almost like a sound and wasn't, and it _hurt_.

~*~

The air around him transformed from hot and clear to the smoke and dust filled atmosphere of the _Boneyard-that-was, was-becoming,_ or possibly just _AR-724 now_ — Eames barely knew what to call it with all the jumping he'd been doing. This was why Psions carved names and dates into their skin— the past, the present, the future and all the timelines got so confused that it was the only way for them to have some concept of linearity. It was one of the reasons that they were so feared, not only because they could jump, change time, and were born to be ruthless, but because the confusion of jumping often drove them insane.

It was also the reason it had been so easy for Eames to say _Stop! No more!_ Hanging on to the remains of his sanity when his whole race had been destroyed had been difficult enough.

But on whatever version of AR-724 they were on, the ground rocked as another impact made itself felt, and Eames straightened, pushing Cato away from him.

"How—" Cato started, and Eames couldn't even find enough bitterness in him to laugh, all of a sudden.

"I got fixed," he said, and then he did laugh, because that was what you said about dogs when they were neutered, and whatever Mal had done to him was so much better than that, there weren't even words for it.

_Healed,_ he thought, and knew it was more accurate. _Mended,_ perhaps, though not the truly broken parts of him. 

Those belonged to the dead.

No, fixed worked. If only because it was a word that meant something to him, and had done ever since he had flared up at Ariadne, when she had first begun making the scarred ash-tat across her palm.

_There are words she doesn't get to use, and one of them is broken,_ he had said to Arthur, Arthur with his fused perm-mod, who always snapped that he didn't need or want to be 'fixed'.

"I got fixed," he repeated, "and time is _mine_."

"No." Cato shook his head, backing away. "No. Sent you back. If you was fixed proper something would have changed. Damn and all, Eames! D'you want to be an oddity, alone and smashed?"

"Y'see, that's the thing," Eames smirked at him. "Not alone."

"Just you and me," Cato argued. "All else are gone. Th' City Corps saw to it. You know it."

"No," Eames said. "See, that's the thing, Cato. No I don't."

And if Mal was right about how time worked, he never had been alone. He hadn't been since the day the Boneyard happened, even though for him it was minutes ago and for everyone else it was years. Everything else had been— inevitable, an eventuality, waiting for its moment. _Arthur_ had always been waiting for him, in that bar with its battered tops of old pitted marble and chipped wood. He himself had always been ready to look across at the right second, and see those long killer's fingers tapping out a warning, in a code that was so very close to what he and his dead had used.

_I'm not alone,_ he had said to Arthur back on Seisui, before their quixotic, lunatic journey to Station Nine. _You never let me be._

"It was never you and me," he said. "Nor meant to be. It was just me. But that never meant alone. Yusuf was right." He laughed, and it didn't taste bitter. It tasted dusty-clean. "It's the human condition. Not some peculiarity the Psions got warped into."

"That's yer toy's words, Eames. He's not a Psion. Don't fool you. He'll not understand." Cato looked up at Eames and recited words ingrained from birth. "We live and we jump and we fight and we bring about change. It's not just what we do, it's what we are."

"Then what are you, with no jack?" 

"Still a Psion. Still, always, a Psion," Cato insisted. "I got the Rules. I got the Way. Always a Psion."

"Oh, for fuck's sake," Eames said, fed up. "Yeah, yeah, you're a Psion and so am I, and Ari's an Academe and Arthur still works for the Corps. As in, don't be so fucking stupid, Cato. You don't have to be just one thing forever, no-one tied you."

"What, you even forget they did?"

"No, they didn't," Eames insisted. "We chose. And we were good. And it's over."

"No. No it's not. We can change it." Cato told him again. 

"Can't change a place or time you never were." Eames said with finality, "I wasn't here. I'm not here now."

Eames reached up to activate his jack, fading away, fading back to Arthur and Seisui and his family... but in the last moment before AR-724 became the Boneyard, he thought he saw a shape scurry out of the shadow of a tumbled down wall, and a voice, "Oh, hello, Monsieur. Tell me, do you know how to pilot a shuttle?"

And he fell back into time through the lurid glow of warped worlds and his own astonished amusement, because perfect. Perfect.

In the end, it wasn't he who had looped Cato into a perpetual eternity of self-destruction, it wasn't he who had brought about the time-diseased madness in the man who now truly was the only remaining Psion, and would be for as long as time existed.

It was Mal.

~*~

When Dom reopened his eyes, Cato was gone, and there was only Eames. Eames falling slowly, so slowly it was almost like he was caught in time.

Which, Dom supposed, he probably was.

Eames never actually hit the ground. Arthur had already covered the short distance and caught him, the weight sending him to his knees on the rough glass-sand.

"Eames," Arthur's voice sounded regretful more than anything else. "I'm so sorry."

"For what?"

"You lost them all again. All the Psions."

"I made a promise."

"I know, but—"

"I made a _promise._ "

Dom wondered if he and Mal had ever been this impossibly stupid. He thought probably not. For all their failings, they had always known exactly what they were saying to each other and just how much it meant— and how it could never be taken back. Not the good, not the bad, not the joy and wonder or the pain and devastation. Nothing said in and for and from love could ever be reversed or taken back or changed.

Eames knew that now, better than most. Dom thought Cato might have worked that out, in his last moments.

Arthur, on the other hand...

"I want to wake up with you and you with me..." The words were soft, quiet enough that Dom barely heard them, but there.

Well, so maybe Arthur did understand, after all, he thought, and turned his attention back to Robert, who was still staring at his bleeding hand in fascination.

"Yeah, cuts do that," he said wearily. "Let's get you back and find a skin-regen machine, shall we?"

~*~


	8. vii. {won't ever again be exiled}

**vii. {won't ever again be exiled}**

To Ariadne, the nighttime sky always seemed more beautiful on Seisui than anywhere else. Not even the remembered beauty of the Gates could compare to it, in her mind. It was as though a hush fell over the entire world and the only things that could be heard were the surf and the almost audible twinkling of millions of stars. 

There were times, though, that she longed for cloud cover. The brilliance of the stars felt too illuminating for her mood— she was exposed, highlighted, obvious, all her mistakes and insecurities on display.

Tonight was a cloud cover night. 

She stood beside Yusuf and Saito as they talked to Dom. He was piloting the Mandell, with the smaller ship that Saito had given him locked in tow position with his mod cloaking both ships. Arthur and Eames had both collapsed on a bunk and appeared to be sound asleep— as far as she could tell with the limited picture they were getting from the ship.

Usually, Ariadne would have been reaching out for Yusuf's hand, slipping her fingers between his as she had begun to do as an automatic gesture on the Boneyard, before they even became lovers. Now— she didn't even know if she was welcome to stand with him, never mind touch him. 

She had failed him more than she had anyone else, and she knew it.

Saito could go anywhere and never be touched or harmed by events, a luxury none of the rest of them had, so she knew she would face no opprobrium from him. That there was a place she feared mattered less to him than that she had displayed the common sense worthy of his General, and chosen to stand back from a fight that was not hers and to which she could have added nothing.

Arthur, though they would always fight about it and as guilty and appalling as she felt, knowing that he had been to the Boneyard, been _taken_ to the Boneyard, and that had she gone with them, she might have stopped that part of it, at least— Arthur would forgive her, she knew. 

No— she forced honesty upon herself, as she had been doing again and again since the whole thing started. Arthur didn't care one way or another whether she had taken the easy option, or whether she felt she had let him down. She had not been needed, in the end, so as far as he was concerned, she knew the point would be moot.

And Eames —

Ariadne wasn't sure, yet, of just what had happened down on the Boneyard. Only that they had been taken there by the other Psion— Cato?— and Eames had sent him back in time, back to where he belonged. Back to die.

No-one was talking very much about what had happened, out there at the end. Ariadne supposed eventually she would be given no choice but to hear it, and know her failings afresh, but for now, there was no urge in any of them, it seemed, to start counting inadequacies.

She looked through the holo-vid at the man Dom and Saito had said was called Robert Fischer, and barring a faint sense of amazement, he was none of her business. The Fischer Corps were gone, along with Cobol, and they were nothing to do with her.

But Yusuf. Yusuf whom she loved with every beat of her heart, with every time she created armies from the perm-mod he had made for her and only for her, with every time she saw a dawn over a new planet, curving and carving a world into life out of light, Yusuf had been the one she had betrayed.

_And he must know it,_ she thought. _He must have known the depths of what I had done to him the second he realized he had no-one to go to but Saito. And it should have been me. Oh God of old, it should have been me. And he couldn't. Because I asked him not._

Dom was still talking, had been so all the time her thoughts were meandering, but he wasn't really telling them Ariadne couldn't have worked out for herself, with a little application. "They're worn out, Eames from the repeated jumps and Arthur from worry. And... something else happened that Eames isn't talking about yet. He's told Arthur, but Robert and I were busy getting the ships linked and figuring out what to do with Cato's men, the two who survived anyway. The other one we just left. One more body will hardly be noticed, I would imagine." Dom gave a shrug. "I don't know if we'll ever know what exactly happened. You know how tight-lipped Eames can be. Arthur too."

"And perhaps that is wise," Saito nodded. "Psion business is probably best left as Psion business, even if that just means Eames."

_Be honest, Saito,_ Ariadne thought to herself a little grimly. _Be honest and say that even if Dom knew everything, we weren't there and it's stopped being our place to ask._

Saito and Yusuf had been sort of there, she knew, but not in any way that had endangered them. Not in any way where they could have brought back new scars of any kind.

And she hadn't even had that, so why should anyone feel bound to tell her anything? As far as they knew, she could prove to be as untrustworthy as Cato had proven himself, as Robert Fischer, silent and trying to disappear into the darker areas of the Mandell as much as he could, had surprisingly _not_ been, in the end.

"We should be home soon," Ari could hear the smile in Dom's voice, even though his rather wavery image looked as serious as he always did. "I hope the kids sleep through it, I don't know if Eames and Arthur are up for their typical welcome home greeting. Stars know, I'm not sure even I'm ready for that."

Dom signed off then, and the room was cloaked in quiet, the only sound being those of Saito as he did a few final checks of the Mandell's systems, taking over so that Dom too could get some rest. 

"That turned out a lot better than it might have."

Yusuf didn't sound angry, Ariadne mused. But then again, he wouldn't. Disappointment rarely led to any sort of loss of temper.

But it did, she knew, lead to the quietly irretrievable knowledge that someone's love was made of a lesser, sub-grade quality than you thought it had been. That their love for you, and yours for them, was not great enough to outweigh the heaviness of bitter disillusionment.

She would have preferred it if he'd turned on her, as she deserved, had told her to leave, to get away from him. Had flung unwarranted accusations at her and left her room for a defense.

She had none of that. Only the silent Mandell, and Saito's equally silent focus as he maneuvered it along its course for home. And Yusuf, whom she now didn't dare touch or speak to, standing beside her and feeling further away from her than he would have had he _gone_ to the damned Boneyard, and remained there, or been time-jumped by Eames and stranded in the past.

"I need to talk to you." Yusuf's voice was quiet and unlike him and Ari wasn't sure if he was trying to avoid disturbing Saito or was simply holding back the anger she was certain he felt. "Let's go... back to the suite."

_The suite._ Those words were more telling than anything. Before it had always been _our_ rooms, or _our_ suite.

_Our quarters._

A part of her wanted to refuse, wanted to stay right where she was, because this was one conversation that she was certain that Yusuf would not have in Saito's presence.

Then again, with Saito completely immersed in the mainframe, and unlikely to hear one word in ten that they said, it was entirely possible that he would forget about privacy or the need for it altogether, if she insisted on staying.

So she simply followed him back, the leader of an army become the meekly led, and tried to summon up whatever courage she had left to listen to what he would say without flinching.

It was when she turned to close the door behind them that her courage failed her, utterly and completely.

"Yusuf—" she started to say, swinging around with her hand still on the door, braced for something she wasn't quite sure of, and found her throat closing, her mind a strange blank, because there was something wrong, something terribly wrong, with using his name, it felt too personal.

And quite suddenly, she understood Eames in a way she had never expected or wanted to.

Ariadne, who was still, in her heart, the Ivory-born Academe of her childhood, felt alone. It was something she'd never really felt before, not even when she had found herself aboard the Mandell and running from the only home she had ever known. Alone and guilty, because she had deserted the one family that had always accepted her and left them to go into danger without her.

How did Eames deal with what he must feel all the time? Deserted and alone, and guilty for being alive.

"I'm sorry," Yusuf said, and she blinked, not capable of processing that, because why should he— what did he —

She didn't understand.

"I am so, so sorry. I let you down. I didn't listen. You were right, Ari. Cold hells, you were so very right. We should never have let them go back there. And I—" He shook his head, angry, and she had been right about that, it rolled off him, she could almost feel the waves of his anger against her face, but somehow it wasn't aimed at her. "I saw the lights go out. My lights. And they could have been gone, and I wouldn't have known, _you_ could have been lost to me, and I would have never been able to find you, and all because I took up a challenge. Because I didn't listen to what was truly being said. Not by Eames, or Arthur— or you. I discounted you all, and I thought I knew better than my own reason. I never knew I had so much arrogance in me, that I would play with the lives of my people for the sake of excelling."

"What?"

"Please, Ari." Yusuf closed his eyes, but continued to speak. As if he didn't want to see her reaction. "I should have stood up and told them not to go. Lords, I almost lost my best friend because... because I had to be right. I knew what I was doing and _that was it._ "

"No, Yusuf." Ariadne blurted out. "I should have gone with them. At the very least, I should have gone with Dom and... I don't know. I should have done something."

" _No._ " And then Yusuf did what she hadn't thought would even be a possibility again, and took her hands in his, his chem-calloused thumb running over her ash-tat scar with unconscious familiarity. "No, Ari. You and Dom— you were the only ones who got anything right. You couldn't go to Station Nine. You told Arthur that, you told me that and we _didn't listen_ to what it meant. And I told Dom that he shouldn't go, and he was right not to listen to me. And no-one, _no-one_ dared say it to Eames, and _I should have._ " The self accusation was clear in his voice.

"Why should you? I could— Arthur could—"

"Because I am the one," Yusuf said, and his voice shook for the first time, "I am the one who told him that it is a lie. It is a lie that Psions are alone unless they are with each other, I said. And then I made it clear that I thought he should give up everything to find his _brother_." He almost spat the last word. "I, who decided to choose my people for myself, made it clear that he alone in all the worlds had no choice as to who he belonged to. What kind of hypocrisy is that, to give to a friend?"

"He would have gone anyway." Ari knew that was true. 

"Maybe," Yusuf conceded. "But at least he would have gone with the knowledge that I am as much his brother as some _possible_ Psion. That you are, that Dom is... that we are all his family. And that no matter what he found or didn't find, that would always be true."

Ari moved to put a hand on Yusuf's shoulder. How odd, to be the one offering comfort when she felt she hadn't deserved it herself. "He knows, I think, even now."

"That," Yusuf said tiredly, "would be a large part of the problem. He knows. He knew. I know _now._ But—"

"He would have gone anyway," Ariadne repeated, steadfast in this one certainty. "Yusuf—" She swallowed down dryness, and said the words she always thought, and so rarely even hinted at, "My love. Listen. He did go anyway. He knew, and he still went. This isn't your fault." A tiny, incredulous laugh caught on a bubble of air in her throat, and escaped her as no more than a breath. "It's not even mine. We just— we just all fucked up. We stopped feeling and we kept thinking and we fucked up."

And that, she realized, was no empty attempt at consolation. It was the absolute truth.

"I... We fucked up." Yusuf repeated. "Now we fix it."

"And now we fix it." Ariadne agreed. "We fix it and we don't do it again. We show Eames that _we're_ his brothers, and that he's never going to be alone."

Not alone and not guilty, she thought firmly. None of them. Not Eames, not Yusuf and not her.

Yes.

They could do that.

~*~

Saito's study was not to Yusuf's tastes at all. It was comfortable, but rather old school, and contained a few too many books of the non-electronic variety. Apparently, no one had notified their friend that print was dead long ago, and that what he had here was a burial ground. Still, Yusuf had to admit, it was cozy and relaxing, and preferable to some places that he'd had to visit for meetings— cold rooms with overly bright lights and hard chairs. In Saito's study, there was a tea tray and a drinks cart and he could sit with Ariadne tucked up against him in comfort and support, so he had to admit its superiority, tastes aside.

He also had to admit that he needed that support at the moment. Even after his talk with Ari, Yusuf was feeling raw and disappointed in himself.

The fact that no-one else seemed to be just rubbed on the raw, for some reason he didn't want to examine too closely. After all, it wasn't as though he _wanted_ everyone else to feel as confirmed in their stupidity (or in his) as he did, was it?

The answer, he thought, was probably yes, since he certainly didn't feel that he was going to believe any time soon that the others (apart from Dom, who to be fair _had_ managed to do the right thing all the way through) understood just how close they had skated to the brink of disaster.

Ari, perhaps. But then Ari had known _before_ they started what an incredibly bad idea it all was, and to give her credit, while she hadn't chosen the best way of informing them of that fact, at least she'd tried.

The greeting between her and Arthur had been— strange, was the only way that Yusuf could describe it, even in the privacy of his own mind. 

Arthur had said bluntly, as soon as he saw her, "You were right," and Ariadne had shrugged a little and said in tones that gave nothing away as to her earlier half-distraught regrets, "So were you."

Not apologies, then, from either of them; neither given nor accepted. But then he'd never really understood their relationship, even when they were on Station Nine, and as long as they weren't actively at each others' throats, he never made much attempt to do so.

They were all settled now, or as settled as they were going to get, Dom perched, hip-cocked, on the corner of Saito's desk, Robert Fischer— Fuck! _Robert Fischer?_ — sprawled in one of the wing chairs, fingers tugging aimlessly at a thread on the gauze that had been hastily wrapped around his hand. Eames and Arthur were almost an unwitting mirror of he and Ari, Arthur leaning back against the arm of the sofa, about as relaxed as an over-strung mandolin, despite his overt indolence; Eames half-lying there with one leg taking up what little there was left of the remaining sofa-space, his boots still on and his eyes lidded and unnecessarily watchful beneath their heaviness. Yusuf wasn't sure who was protecting whom, but was just as certain that there was protecting going on. They both looked exhausted— Eames's skin was a bit drab and grey under his tattoos and Arthur's eyes looked like two burnt holes in the blanket of his face.

Eames was leaving Boneyard dust all over Saito's expensive upholstery, and Yusuf truly wished he didn't know that his friend was absolutely unconscious of the fact, despite the inherent irony.

Dom, he realized almost immediately after, must have noticed all of that about them both as well, because he wasted no time in getting them started.

"Right," he said, and somehow he had managed to get hold of a healthy glassful of what Yusuf bitterly suspected was Saito's best shell-sand filtered rice spirits, damn him, and _where was the bottle_ , and how had Dom gained ninja skills in the last two days?—"I'm not asking for an explanation. I got some of one from Robert, I heard enough from Yusuf and Ari here to work the rest of the 'hello, there's another Psion, let's not tell Dom because he might actually be able to _help_ ', and thank you for that, really, part out for myself. So I can tell you both now I don't really need details of the why or how this happened. I do want to know what the fuck you thought you were all playing at, though."

Despite his words, he sounded almost cheerful, and in no way unfriendly. Yusuf, who in Dom's position would have been working on holding a grudge until the end of time, blinked at him. Ari had sat up, and was openly staring, and Eames and Arthur just kept on looking like sleep-deprived spacers. Which involved staring, too, but Yusuf wasn't sure whether that meant they were as flummoxed as he was, or that they hadn't actually registered a word that had been said.

Robert just kept on picking at his gauze, and Yusuf was very close to smacking his fingers away, because that did not count as a contribution or even a half-reason as to his presence.

Dom shrugged. "What?" he asked. "Now I have to be nice about it, too?"

"That would be the issue here," Yusuf said. "You _are_ being nice. It's very inexplicable."

"No, nice would be me letting everyone sort through this in their own time," Dom pointed out. "As it is, my niceness expiry date came at the point of getting Saito too distracted with household matters to be here. And if he's listening in, I wish him joy of it, and am adding a healthy fuck off while he's still homed in on whatever mod his interface linked to _this_ time."

Yusuf glanced down at his mod-tracer, which was now operational again, and had been since Eames had stopped doing— whatever the seven hells it was he had been doing, and _he_ wanted to know what the fuck it was they'd been thinking, as well, nicely and succinctly put, Dominic— and saw Saito's user-light blink off. If a light could look mildly embarrassed, he rather thought that one would have. 

He supposed, deciding to keep his mouth shut, that he couldn't be too demanding about that 'thinking' explanation, since he rather thought Dom would have said 'you two' rather than 'you all' if he hadn't been included in the not-quite-a-question.

"I think you summed it a'ready," Eames managed to say. "Brother he was, but not jacked. Wanted mine and wanted the Psion's back. Didn't get them."

Arthur just nodded blankly, tugging Eames tighter against him.

Yusuf frowned as he picked his way through the shorthand of Onyx-speak. Someone wanted the Psions back? Could Eames do that? Or more importantly, would Eames do that? 

A decade of Psions alone would wreak havoc with Saito's plans, but the whole Psion army, all of them jacked and battle ready, could bloody well bring about apocalypse. Stars and lights, how could anyone even consider that as an option, Yusuf wondered, and then felt guilt crash down on him. _That_ , as he had just called it, was in fact Eames's family, it was his _brothers_ ; and the City-Corps, backed and financed by the Gates-Planet as a whole (and by men like Yusuf's father, in a rather nasty particular that he still didn't care to contemplate), had committed genocide against them. 

Which outcome was worse Yusuf still didn't know.

What he did know was that Psions could be taught to have other family, to form connections to non-Psions, and to not use the jack that been forced on to them— Eames was proof.

Eames was also proof— or rather Eames being there with them was proof— that even if he could have brought back the Psions, he hadn't, which rather suggested he _wouldn't_ , and if nothing else, had certainly refused to do so when this other Psion had been controlling the time-jack which he himself had apparently lacked.

The scientist in Yusuf wanted to know where and when and how this other Psion's jack had become non-operational, what he'd been using to control Eames's time-hopping, and how in all hells Eames had managed to take control _back_.

The part of him that was still feeling rather flayed by guilt about just what an appalling friend he had been recently didn't even want to imagine what it had all been like, and was quite happy to never find out.

He suspected that wouldn't be a part of him that lasted very long, though. Fascination with a problem would always be his driving force, and just because he was currently feeling like shit over something really didn't mean it was going to last, or in fact last until the end of the conversation, if he was honest. Sooner or later, someone would say something far too interesting to ignore.

Looking around him, he really, really doubted it was going to be Arthur, though, which unfortunately meant the guilt over _that_ little facet of events was going to be staying with him for some considerable time.

"Yeah," Dom was saying patiently, having apparently picked his way through the Onyx-speech to arrive at the conclusion of 'great, yes, like I said I'd worked that much out, so thank you for being utterly fucking useless', which a small part of Yusuf, not concerned either with feeling like a prize shit or with how exactly Eames and this other Psion had been manipulating time, couldn't help but agree with, "that's not what I meant, I can see that much. I meant more— the Bone—AR-724, I mean, sorry— what the fuck _was_ that?"

Eames blinked his eyes so slowly that Yusuf was almost expecting him to fall asleep before he gave his answer. Apparently adrenal let-down was hitting hard.

"Cato, ya mean? He's a Psion, jack or no, and they were all there... 'cept for me." 

"I wasn't there." Arthur spoke as if it were an automatic rote reaction to Eames's words.

"And nor was I," Eames answered him back, his head dropping down to Arthur's shoulder. "'S why I took him back. He was there and was again. Won't stay though. Mal took him."

"What?!"

Okay, Yusuf thought, that _was_ interesting, and not in a way that meant he had a sudden urge to take everyone apart and poke at things, either.

Robert sat up, and stopped looking dully absent and absorbed by his gauze-wrap.

"Then you _did_ change the past!"

"No," Eames said slowly, "acos of not bein' there."

Dom rubbed his hands over his face. "I was wrong," he said into his palms. "So, so wrong. I need an explanation. _Now._ "

"Wasn't there," Eames said again. "Not in my memory. But Mal was and remembered it— me. Named me magician an' all."

Yusuf untangled that and looked at Dom. "Was Mal on AR-724?"

"Of course not!"

"Was so," Eames insisted. "With the researchers. Told her to get gone, get safe. And she was. Took Cato too."

"No."

"Are you sure, Dom?" Yusuf asked. Being the voice of reason was a new role for him. He wasn't sure if he relished it. "She did call Eames a magician. More than once. I thought she was joking, but I do remember it."

"She would have mentioned something that vaguely important—" Dom started irritably, and then fell silent. "No," he said slowly. "No, of course she wouldn't. Of course she didn't. She knew she _couldn't._ "

"I'm lost," Ariadne said, sitting up from her curl against Yusuf. "Or confused. Which? Someone?"

"You're both," Arthur said, which made Robert snort, and now _he_ had a glass of spirits, and this was getting mysterious and unfair and— ah. Eames had the bottle. All was suddenly explained, at least to Yusuf.

_Give,_ he mouthed.

Eames, unconvincingly, attempted innocence. Yusuf glared at him. Ari somehow ended up with the bottle.

Yusuf, who was in the end a most pragmatic man, just hoped she shared.

"She couldn't," Dom repeated, ignoring the byplay, "because if she did, it would have happened. And if it had happened, it _couldn't_ happen. Mal devised time-paradoxes for fun, before— before. She'd have loved that. Keeping a secret, ready to tell it."

"Didn't tell her," Eames muttered, "not that she would never get to tell it. Couldn't say it. She was— young. Happy. Couldn't."

"Good, because you shouldn't have, either," Dom pointed out, remarkably serenely for someone who had just had a new aspect added to his world view. "Or _her_ future would have changed. You were lucky it was her."

"Yeah, an' I know that, promise, but—"

"No," Dom said. "No, Eames. Anyone else would have asked. Mal knew not to. You met the one person who was guaranteed to make sure you _didn't_ change anything."

"Did," Eames agreed with a sad nod. "Kept me from 'em. Cato wasn't there either and still isn't."

Yusuf frowned. "But what about the Cato that was there? He was there twice?"

"No." Eames shook his head. "Just said he wasn't."

"But—"

"You'll just make your brain hurt, Yusuf." Ariadne spoke up next to him. "There are some things that are non-crucial events. All changes make waves. Some turn into tsunamis and some just fade out."

"Tha's it." Eames agreed. "Good too, cause Cato was staying, wave or no."

" _Ah,_ " Yusuf said, because that much he _could_ understand. "Yes, I see. He left in the first place because he piloted a shuttle out when the destruction of the planetoid began, I learned that much. He left _again_ for the same reason, didn't he? He is always escaping, and always coming back."

Eames nodded. Dom's mouth curled up in a small smile, and Yusuf recognized all the layers of that look; pride and love and helpless admiration, all there in the open. 

All for Mal.

"So in the end, you didn't even create a loop for Cato, you let someone else have that very dubious honor," Yusuf said, and laughed. "Not bad, my friend, not bad. I admire your powers of resistance against all temptation."

"I didn't," Eames pointed out. "Took him back, would've left him—"

"And changed nothing, because he had to be there for the beginning, no matter what happened next," Dom finished up, and he sounded as though he would like to laugh. Yusuf knew that he wouldn't, though, not now when everything was too new and raw and open. Dom wasn't one for adding salt to a wound.

"I'm glad I didn't go, now, whatever my reasons were," Ari said softly. "Very glad."

"Because you couldn't have resisted the temptation for change?" Arthur said tiredly, his first real participation in anything going on around him. Yusuf wondered what the hell had happened to him, out there in the dust of the Boneyard, and made a mental note to never ask about it unless he was being told.

"No," Ari said in the same quiet voice. "Because I wouldn't have believed _Eames_ could. Sorry."

Yusuf had to marvel at Ari's bravery in saying what they all had been thinking. The temptation had to have been... irresistible. But somehow, Eames had still resisted.

"Couldn't." Eames shrugged. "I know me. I know _Psions_ 'n _me_. That's it. I know what's what and those as were my brothers— they don't."

"It still had to be hard." Robert Fischer's quiet voice broke through. "I don't think my guilt would have allowed me to be quite as objective."

"Was easy," Eames shrugged and looked at them all defiantly, daring one of them to voice a single contradiction. "I made a promise."

Ari's scarred hand, which always found its way into Yusuf's when they were anywhere close to each other, tightened its grip on his fingers, and he rubbed his thumb across the back of it, thinking as he did so that Eames and Arthur weren't the only two in the room with their own silent code.

He knew what Ari was thinking about, because they had been there, back when that promise had first been made; there on the Boneyard, listening to something Yusuf had thought should be private, and that Ari had known would one day need to have been witnessed.

She had told him later that she _would_ have been the witness, back on the Gates-Planet, that it was one of the positions she had studied to take up.

"I would have put away the sigils for them," she had told him afterwards, in one of her rare moments of almost-melancholy, "sealed them into the machinery. Made it official. I wish they knew that."

"I still think it was private," Yusuf had demurred then, but now, looking at Eames's challenging expression, he knew he had been wrong, that someone else _had_ to know what had been said.

What had been _promised_ , he amended silently, and had been promised long before they even got to Seisui, let alone come up with the plan to destroy Cobol from its comparative safety.

The day of so many first times, as he folded her small hand into his, and kept it there, and after that it had become their gesture towards one another, so very long, it seemed to him sometimes, before they had become lovers.

That day was the first time she had heard the truth of the Psions' destruction, the first time he had ever let it slip what it meant to have _people_ , and shown her his scorn for them, the first time she had ever seen Eames's true face, the first time either of them had known, let alone suspected, how deeply that strange connection ran between Eames and Arthur.

The day of discovering what the true Boneyard held; the day of finding the dead— so many dead— with the dry-dark and yet still-smeary traces of their death around them; the day of seeing the blackened rubble and the husked corpses, enclosed in tombs that had once been workrooms, had once been the Psions' home.

The day which was to hold, for all of them, the first time that any of them would have to watch what it looked like to see a Psion fall through time, remain so still and yet visibly fall through time, and lose himself and all that he was in opposing and lost memories. The day Yusuf, at least, had understood just what the tattoos were for. Understood that time could change and reverse and obliterate itself, but a Psion's skin was scarred and blackened for eternity. 

He had run from that, he suspected, as much as he had run from what he had thought to be something which should have remained hidden and private.

But later, much later, after Mal's self-immolation and her destruction of Cobol, Ariadne had told him the full words, the ones they hadn't stayed to hear the end of, running back to the comparative shelter of the Mandell and away from something they hadn't been invited to listen to.

_I want to wake up with you. I want you to wake up with me. I want the words we say when we awake and when we leave to be the first thing and the last thing we say to each other. Wake up with me._

Yusuf remembered, and remembering, he knew damn well what that promise had been, keeping Eames from what must have been something he longed for.

"You did," he agreed into the silence that Eames had brought about. "And you are doing a very good job of keeping it."

~*~

Being home was the best feeling ever, and Arthur didn't care how sappy and trite that thought was, it was completely true. He and Eames were relaxing in the shade, where the hillside gently drifted down to meet with the sand of the beach, and he had, with Saito's backup, forbidden anyone from disturbing them for at least two hours. No Dom, no Yusuf with his unending questions about time loops and the control of the time-jack, no Ari with her attempts at apology and her pinched, worried expression whenever she looked at them, and, thank the stars, no James, Philippa or Yumi wanting attention or distraction or, Lords forbid, asking questions that were even more mind-numbing than Yusuf's.

Whether it was the fact that Eames had benefited from Mal's healing-mod, and Arthur had been stuck with the Seisui regen bases, or that so many jumps had simply meant that only the last one was something Eames would remember, Arthur wasn't sure of, but the fact remained that he seemed to be dealing with far more lasting effects from their impromptu trip to the Boneyard than Eames.

On the other hand, that might have been because he was sleeping— to be sure, it was a disturbed kind of sleep that involved far too many sudden awakenings for his comfort, but still, he came by it honestly if erratically— and as far as he could tell, Eames had simply given up on trying for any sort of natural rest.

Arthur wasn't exactly thrilled about finding empty sleep-syringes hidden about their rooms.

Then again, he wasn't thrilled with his own dreaming patterns, either, so he was hardly in a position to comment. He just— hated it. All of it. He hated the fact that Eames was out and under too deeply for dreaming because he didn't want to disturb Arthur, he hated the fact that the damn syringes were rapid onset-offset, so he often fell asleep _and_ woke up alone, he hated the fact that yet again, Yusuf was, whether he liked it or not, being an interfering bastard who needed to know when to back off and tell Eames _no_ , and he hated the fact that he seemed incapable of telling anyone any of it.

He had to admit, though, that as excuses went for avoiding company, it at least seemed pretty reasonable. Everyone but Arthur, it seemed, had known almost as soon as they got back to Seisui that Eames had asked for (and got) a stock of sleep-syringes from Yusuf, which meant that everyone knew Eames wasn't sleeping properly, which meant that everyone automatically assumed Arthur wasn't sleeping properly... and for some reason, fewer people wanted to deal with a grouchy, whiney, I'm-going-to-put-my-fist-through-your-face Arthur than wanted to even try to talk to Eames, so that was a bonus all around.

Come to think of it, _Arthur_ didn't really want to talk to Eames— or at least, not about the damned Boneyard. Mostly because it was going to mean _him_ talking about the Boneyard, and he had a pretty good idea that not having to listen to what he had to say about it was at least half the reason Eames preferred drugs to any sort of half-way-to-natural attempts at retrieving or attempting normal sleep-onset.

After all, you couldn't discuss things with anyone, when you were too sedated to move— even when they woke up from dreaming and hit you in the face, because apparently waking up in any sort of dignified manner had stopped being an option for Arthur, some time since.

On the other hand, if it hadn't been for that pleasant little discovery, he might never have worked it out about the sleep-syringes, either. So that was at least a sort-of bonus.

Just not a very useful one.

So, no sleeping or talking, and just a lot of general avoidance was going on. None of that was particularly useful but in Arthur's mind it was all a neces—

"Oi! Eames!" 

—sity.

Arthur whirled toward the person hailing them, ready to send them crawling back under a rock somewhere. 

"Don't." Eames stopped him. "It's Maf."

Arthur would have felt a lot better if that had been said with any kind of interest, let alone the anger that Maf's appearance should have evoked.

Maf shouldn't have been on Seisui. Maf shouldn't have been anywhere near them, because Maf was supposed to have vague traces of self-preservation, what with being a spacer who apparently owned Lukho, Station Nine, and all its shit-licking denizens, and had absolutely no compunction about setting people up to be time-jumped on a whim, just because he _could_. 

With all that already thrown down on the metaphorical gaming-tables he seemed to carry with him, and no further tricks up his sleeve, Maf should have been literal light years away from Arthur, because Arthur?

Was going to kill him.

"They said you was back." Maf stated, waggling his eyebrows at Arthur. "Hello, sweeting. Have a nice visit with Lukho?"

Well, the man had nerve, Arthur had to admit. "Of course, and amazingly enough he survived the meeting... something you may not do."

"Ah, the pup barks." Maf grinned as if he had not a care. "Does it bite too?"

"Oh, I can bite, Maf, and if you don't tell us why you sent us chasing after a fake Psion and—"

"But you found one all the same, yeah?" 

"Don't play hardhead," Eames spoke up. "Even you know the difference between ash-scars and ink-tattoos, Maf. Why the chase? An' don't feed me a line about hoping I found family— it don't ring true."

"Never did feed you that line, though, did I?" Maf said, almost musingly. "Told you truth, only you wasn't in no mood for listenin'. Said every man needed a past, I did. Never said past meant family, mate. Never said Psions did, neither."

"You sent me," Eames said in the same flat, disinterested voice, "to the Boneyard. _Mate._ An' don't tell me you didn' know who was drownin' in his own fucking guilt back on th'Station."

"May've," Maf conceded, rubbing delicately at the tip of an over-pierced ear. "Possible. Meet lots, I do."

Arthur frowned. He wasn't sure what was going on between Eames and the spacer. Wasn't sure what Robert had to do with it or why Maf had tried to make them think that Robert was a Psion. What would Maf get out of it? Arthur was sure that no matter what Maf had plotted and planned, the outcome would be some gain for himself. 

The question then was, what did Maf consider gain? 

What did Lukho, a guilt-ridden ex-Corp put forth as a Psion, and an actual Psion have in common? Aside from Eames, of course. Arthur didn't think it had anything to do with the jack, at least, Maf seemed too smart to go down that road. But that didn't mean that he wouldn't sell a chance for someone else to make use of it.

"Hope it was worth it," Eames said suddenly, in the same crystal-clear tones he had used on Maf before, back in the bar of the vile little c-grade restover. "Hope to every fucking star it was worth it, Maf, because I don't take kindly to being sold out, and between you and Lukho and your deals, you sold me down the fucking river to Cato. Good price, was I? Or did it need to include a Corps-soldier, make it worth your while? You talk to Cato yourself, did you? Use me as a gaming chip?" He grinned, crooked and lethal and suddenly far too alert, and Arthur knew, before ever the orange light-waves began to hum around him, what that expression meant. "You disappointed I came through whole?"

"Lords, Eames." Maf's false grin turned more towards crafty. "Didn't sell you out. Don't you think I knew that you and your friend are smarter than Lukho thinks he is?"

"Then what was it, Maf?" Eames moved another step closer to Maf. 

Arthur was torn. Eames jumping with Maf, a well-known spacer with ties over a large part of known space, would have much more serious repercussions than Eames jumping with Cato, who had been to the rest of the worlds nothing more than an un-jacked Psion who had been hiding for years. 

_Tsunamis and wavelets,_ Arthur thought. In the end, Cato had been no more than a wavelet.

Maf unleashed on time would be a tsunami.

"I hoped you'd do just what you did." Maf shrugged, "Well, not exactly. I didn't know about Cato being there or his connection to Lukho."

"Didn't you." It wasn't in any way a question. It was just full of an utter, scathing disbelief that had very little to do with what was happening here and now and on Seisui, and everything to do with the choice that Eames had been forced to make again, and again, and fucking _again_ , under Cato's control.

There was no reason, Arthur understood with a kind of clarity that came with utter horror, for Eames to trust in _anything_ being real, any more. He'd been forced to see Arthur's name carved into his shoulder, had _felt_ it, thanks to the warping mod-controls that had been used on his jack, he had re-met Mal for a first encounter he hadn't known about, he had delivered Cato into hell without looking back, and all of it had been lived out on a place where every Psion known had died.

"Well, I might've heard rumors," Maf admitted, "but I just thought they'd draw you there quicker. That was my part of the game, Eames. You could do what I couldn't... so I just arranged for you to do it. I won, 'cause you did. "

"And that means you owe me." 

"Now, Eames, I just—"

"You owe me."

There was silence, and a quick nod from Maf.

And what, Arthur wondered, did it mean that Maf owed Eames? Not that he'd argue with the concept because yeah, it was pretty obvious. Arthur also wondered what exactly they had done that Maf thought he could not.

"Robert," Eames said, looking at him, and damn, sometimes it was almost impossible not to give the story that Psions were mind-readers as well as time-shifters credence. "He sent us there because he wanted Robert out." His expression was more a snarl, now, than the lethal grin of before, but it was ugly and real and _honest_ in its anger, and Arthur had never been more glad to see anything in his life, because this wasn't the Psion of the Boneyard, or the new owner of the time-jack who had come back, drained of every emotion save distrust, to Seisui's harbor.

This was Eames, who had dragged them all through the hell of Station Nine with nothing but a false body and the ability to play it for all it was worth in his arsenal of tricks; who had destroyed his every opportunity for what must have looked like pure redemption, no matter how often it had been offered to him; who cared more for a promise he had made in the bone-dust and ash-sand of the Boneyard than he did for a thousand lives he could have brought back at the cost of nothing more than the love Arthur so very rarely admitted to.

Rarely, and yet continually, and yet had never felt more than he did now, beating through him like a second pulse, a modified heart. Eames had come back with learned distrust, but Arthur had come back with a raw new faith, and it hummed through his air more than Eames's controlled time would ever do.

He put his emotions aside, and blew a gust of air out from between slowly unclenching teeth, forcing calm down upon himself like a hood, before he turned toward Maf. "You couldn't have just asked? You had to make this some part of _The Game?_ "

Yeah, Maf was playing them and Arthur was speaking with capitals and italics in his words. The whole thing was un-fucking-believable.

"Yeah, 'n if Lukho got wind Robert would have been locked up tighter than yer Gran's bloomers."

There were several responses that came to Arthur's mind, and not a single one of them could ever have been as satisfying as the decision his body made for him before his mouth could choose the perfect rejoinder.

He was fairly sure the crack he had heard was something appalling happening to Maf's jaw, when his blow hit target, as dead centre as any of his piloting runs.

"The _fuck_ —?" Maf howled in garbled tones, sat down in a heap with his hands clamped to the side of his face, and quite suddenly leant sideways and coughed out blood onto the sand, unable to say anything else as he tried not to choke.

"Nice," Eames said appreciatively.

"I thought so." Arthur agreed, shaking his hand out to the side. He always forgot how much it fucking _hurt_ to strike bone against bone, until he did it. 

"I'm sorry to interrupt, only Saito wanted to know if you—Maf!" Robert's polite inquiry suddenly became an excited jumble. "Are you alright? What happened?"

Robert wouldn't be getting an answer any time soon, Arthur thought, but somehow he didn't feel even the slightest bit guilty.

"Arthur," Eames said, sounding positively gleeful about it.

"O—kaaay?" Robert said uncertainly.

"Want to match?" Arthur asked, as politely as he could.

"Not... especially," Robert said very carefully. "Er. Right, okay, since apparently Maf is playing the part of Exhibit A, what the fuck did he do _now_?"

"Insulted Arthur's Gran," Eames said.

"Oh, well, that explains everything," Robert said with an eye-roll. "No, _shut up_ , Maf, that makes as much sense as anything else and I don't feel like trying to rehinge your jaw back to your skull, thanks all the same." He tugged Maf to his feet by the collar of his jacket.

" _Mmmrrr,_ " Maf said venomously.

"Is it very wrong of me to be enjoying this?" Robert asked innocently.

Eames started to laugh.

"Not at all," Arthur said generously. "All yours. Carry on." He was very tempted to laugh himself, but he somehow thought being polite and blank-faced about it was making everyone but Maf enjoy themselves _more_ , and it was so nice to be on the side of the violent angels.

"Wsn ar," Maf complained, and tried to tug Robert closer to him. "Shsn a on."

"Well, that made all the sense in the world." Eames chuckled. "Would you like to try that again?"

"Stop talking, you idiot." Robert pulled back and frowned at Maf. "This. This is why I went back to the station. I... I had things I needed to think about and I knew that even if you came there you'd _have_ to act like you didn't even know me."

"Awwer—"

"Stop!"

This was all beginning to make sense to Arthur. They'd had some kind of disagreement and Robert had gone to Station Nine to get away from Maf. It was a good choice, Arthur thought, because Maf would never let Lukho get the upper hand on him by letting him know he was interested in Robert.

Eames heaved a sigh, the sound of the terminally and tragically put-upon, and said, "Maf. I'm gonna do you a favor, okay? Next time you want one of your pretty boys to kneel, beg, and cry for you, check they're not a Psion, City-Corps, or a Gates-man."

"Arrr _graaah_ maa—"

"That would be the part where my name's Fischer, yes, now shut up and let the nice Psion explain," Robert added.

"Mrr-aaa dnn—"

"Be quiet!"

"Next," Eames said, holding up a second finger like a checklist from hell, "find out if he really is faking or if you're tapping into something he does. Not. Fucking. Want."

"Oo—ii."

"Yeah, because you _paid for me_ ," Eames said, apparently having no difficulty with translation, "and I was _wearing a holo_."

"Roo."

"And _then,_ " Eames finished up, getting into Maf's face while a grinning Robert held him still, "try _talking_ to him, not sending people you _already owe_ , you stupid bastard, to Lukho's station."

"I'm sorry he got you mixed up in this." Robert apologized. "Causing you trouble was the last thing I ever wanted, Eames. Seems like I can't manage to stop hurting Psions, even inadvertently."

"Eees sa ooay," Maf interrupted, one hand reaching gently towards Robert but freezing when Robert scowled at him.

"I don't care if Eames said it's okay, Maf." Apparently, Robert had taken the same gibberish lessons as Eames, because he deciphered that bit like a pro. "You fucking well don't treat people like commodities. That's a lesson I learned the hard way— what in all hells is it going to take for you to learn?"

And there was the kicker in their relationship, Arthur figured. Was Robert his partner or his pet?

"Nnn," Maf said vehemently. "Aa-o. Ook. Aa-o."

"Great, it took Cato, that makes me feel—" Robert stopped. "Oh," he said in a different tone of voice. "Well. Yes, I suppose that's all right."

"Oh _good_ ," said Arthur to the sky. "How nice for you."

"No, it's— yeah. I. I guess I should get his jaw seen to," Robert said a bit dazedly, and dragged Maf along the dunes and up to the path.

" _What_?" Arthur said in complete bewilderment.

Eames snorted. "Maf meant thinking Cato'd taken _Robert_ was what made him learn. I mean, whether he really has learned is not anyone's problem but theirs, but—"

"He did ask for help," Arthur agreed. "Must have hurt."

"Yeah. Both things— his jaw and thinking he'd lost Robert."

"Eames..." 

"That's swelling up." Eames pointed out.

"What? Oh, my hand. Yeah, I probably should get some ice on it. Or just use one of the new mods Yusuf's been so desperate to try out on a victim."

"Yeah. And then let's grab a nap. You look like crap."

"Well, that's good, because my looks should match how I feel."

"Not sure you've got an advantage going with that," Eames said, "but whatever makes you feel better about it."

"I—" Arthur started, and then stopped, because fuck, if _Maf_ could try for honesty, why couldn't he? "It might," he said with careful precision, "be a bit worse. Than crap. How I feel."

"Yeah, I did sort of guess that bit," Eames said, but he didn't sound guilty, thank every corpsed lord, and he sounded more as though he was saying _I'm listening._

"I might have had doubts about..."Arthur stopped and cleared his throat. "I mean... I had doubts that you would choose your promise over doing what Cato wanted. Not... not for Cato, but for yourself. Because fuck, Eames, that's your whole life... your brothers...fuck! Not that I don't think you take your promise seriously, but what's one broken-mod ex-Corps soldier when compared to your entire past?"

Eames just shook his head, "I'm a Psion. I don't have a past. I only have time to use as I please. And spending it with you is my choice."

"I know, but—"

"I choose you, Arthur. Annoying, frustrating and as stick-stiff as you can be, I choose you."

"You choose me—seven hells, you _chose_ me every time," Arthur said, still not quite able to deal with that piece of knowledge. "I don't— what the fuck am I supposed to find to give back, for that?"

Eames stared at him for a moment, visibly grasping for words, and Arthur was just on the verge of saying something along the babbling lines of 'look, never mind, it doesn't matter, I wasn't looking for a real-life answer, I just needed to say it,' when Eames apparently decided to give up on saying anything out loud, and instead pulled Arthur into an embrace that was not in the least romantic, pressing the flats of his palms on Arthur's back, and holding him still.

"Okay, listen," he said roughly. "And listen good, cos I am not going to say this again. You already gave it me, Arthur. You gave me the choice to make in the first fucking place. And you let me know it was mine _to_ make. I heard you. I heard you just fine, when you thought I was sleeping. You said you'd wait for me. You trusted me that much, so much you could tell me whatever I chose, you'd be there waiting. And you don't know. You don't _know_. Cato, he talked a load of bollocks, yeah? But he got one thing right. We never knew what home was meant to feel like. We never had to. Home was us. And see, that's a choice Cato couldn't force on me, cos it wasn't one. Home's you. Wasn't anywhere else time would've sent me. That's my control. You're _it._ "

There was no reply for that, only warmth and comfort and the sudden relaxation of muscles that had been tense so long that Arthur hadn't even felt them until they relaxed. It was dizzying, that feeling, just Eames holding him still and looking at him with eyes full of the sincerity of truth. 

Arthur dropped his head down, resting his forehead against Eames's. "Yeah. Alright."

The words were more acknowledgement than agreement, but Eames seemed to understand anyway. "Right, ice packs and then sleep."

"Yes. Please."

But he didn't move for a long time after that, and Eames made no attempt at shifting away, or letting him go, which was good, because Arthur didn't think he was going to be up to not being the one to make the first move back or away for a long, long time.

He was done with waiting.

~*~


	9. epilogue: {the dawn rain}

**epilogue {the dawn rain}**

Tea, Saito thought in contentment, was such a versatile drink. One could share it with friends or drink it alone, and never be given the side-eye for it. It could be plainly or elaborately made, and it came in hundreds, even thousands of varieties. Tea could be used to soothe and comfort or to awaken and invigorate. It was a staple on nearly every planet in known space and one of his main trading commodities, stable and always profitable.

Truth be known, Saito preferred coffee, but with Dom and Ariadne in the house, his morning cup was often emptied before he could even pour it, which was only one of the joys of a joint household full of such... unique personalities.

No-one, though, other than Eames on rare and irritating occasions, and now and again Yusuf, who was simply a locust in human form, seeking where he might to devour, ever went after the teapot.

Sometimes he wondered if it was simply too wide for their morning-narrowed vision to encompass it, rather than any sort of fear of his reaction or response to blatant theft— then again, since his reaction or response to blatant theft was more usually resigned acceptance, it was possible that they had no fear of anything whatsoever he might do.

Therefore, he conceded, teapots were too wide for morning vision.

He wondered if perhaps he could have some made that were even wider, and prevent a sudden onset of unwanted focus.

Saito also wondered if Eames felt the same way as the putative teapot at the moment. Eames was settled against Arthur, who was ignoring him in favor of the incoming morning news on his interface, but no one else in the room was pretending to do anything but stare at him with speculative looks on their faces. Yusuf, especially, was determined to learn what he could about the adjustments Cato had done to Eames's jack— how it was programmed, how it was controlled from outside, how it was controlled from inside, what did it feel like, Eames, really?

Saito could only be relieved that such interest was not focused on him.

At least Robert Fischer and his spacer... companion had left, Saito thought in relief, even if he was sure they'd been given an open invitation to return whenever they wanted or needed to. Less than a day in their company had proved to him that there were, indeed, worse things in life than watching Ariadne and Yusuf be most— unwarlike, was the only term he could think of— in each other's company, a new and in his mind highly unwelcome development.

He was unsure of what had changed there. It was not their alliance, nor their closeness: so much everyone had taken for granted now for a while— but there was a softness about them, these days, one which he did not think anyone else in the room would ever find or want.

It was as though Ariadne's brief bout of inexplicable wariness, her innate suspicion of all around her, had removed some part of her General's carapace, and in doing so made Yusuf more aware of the world around him.

No, Saito thought, it was not _altogether_ unwelcome. Nor was it, as he had initially assumed, exclusive.

It _did_ , however, exclude him, and he was not entirely convinced that such a change was what he would have wanted.

He was on the outside, waiting in the wings, or possibly behind the curtain, like that wizard-who-was-not in Pip's favorite storybook— homesick but making the best of it. It was a strange feeling. 

"I swear, Yusuf, if you don't leave Eames alone, I'm going to rip your ears off and hang them from a chain around my neck," Arthur growled, never looking up from the news.

"They would look terrible," Yusuf said cheerfully, and Eames, bizarrely, actually laughed at that.

"What?" he asked a surprised-looking Arthur. "They would. And creepy, too."

"They'd smell," Ariadne said drowsily, holding her cup in both hands as she blinked into its depths. "Oh, preservative, right?"

"That was not a stunning defence of my person," Yusuf said to her drily, and she yawned at him in response. "Did you sleep at all last night, chick?"

"Mm, ish," Ariadne agreed, leaning against him. "Want more. Want all the sleep. Saito stole it."

Saito looked at her in surprise.

"I did? How so?"

"You want all the things," Ariadne said, and yawned again. "So you must've started with the sleep. My sleep. Bad Saito."

"Your theory is not... without merit," Saito said dryly as a hand clamped down on his shoulder.

"Merit perhaps," Dom chuckled as he patted Saito's shoulder, "but I think your hypothesis falls short. If Saito took all the sleep, you would have had none and he would have had more... and I know for a fact that he couldn't have had more than three hours last night."

"Really, Dominic. Have you set spies on me?"

"Why? Do you believe I need to?" Dom looked far too serious for the tone of the discussion.

"I do not," Saito said carefully, going by Dom's expression rather than his words as to what approach he needed to take. "I may consider later the fact that you seem to want to, however."

"Mm-hm," was all Dom responded with, but he left his hand on Saito's shoulder, which was something Saito had noticed his strange little team did to one another for all sorts of reasons— to reassure, to question, to remind —

To control.

"Dominic?"

"Nothing," Dom said easily, and leant over him to— all stars take him to the depths— steal his tea. And leant back over to put it back after one sip and a disgusted grimace, which suited Saito perfectly, because he truly did not think he could stand to have Dom become as much of an addict of tea as he was of coffee.

And then he said quietly in Saito's ear, as he took just longer than he should to replace the teacup, "Tread lightly, Saito. No-one's ready, yet."

_Ah, so that was it._ Leave it to Dom to understand his thoughts.

There were so many reasons that Saito had placed Dom in the position he had, why Dom stood in his place rather than any of his ministers or advisors, and this was the main one. If Saito could understand in a flash what it could mean to the consolidation of his powers, to the plans he had for a peaceful and better future, to have an amenable and friendly Psion with a working time-jack under his direction, then Dom was barely one step behind. Saito had the world-changing, far-reaching plans and Dominic kept him on the proper road to enact them, kept him moving smoothly between the lines with no jarring stops or false turns.

And Dom, as Saito had long since realized, had a true affection for that same Psion— not the same as he did for Arthur, Saito also knew that. Had the unthinkable occurred, and Dom too been made a Psion, back in a youth when he had known no more than any child what choice truly meant, it would have still made him and Arthur no less brothers than Dom felt now— and him and Eames no more so. And yet, Saito knew, all that aside, Dom had enough affection for _Eames_ that he had gone from Station Nine to the Boneyard, and not even thought twice about why or whether he should do so.

Saito had observed them all, back when they were all living out their terrible devil's bargain on that same space-station, and he had watched how they all pulled Dom out of his wilderness of barren, hellish despair.

He had come to appreciate them for it, and come to know their value.

Saito tended to forget that while he was not sure Dom was capable of fully doing either; that while he suspected Dom was neither capable of knowing the true value of his strange little team, nor able to appreciate all they had done for him, he did more than that— so much more that perhaps knowledge or appreciation was not truly required. 

Dom loved them, instead.

And what was more, Dom didn't seem to need to quantify that love the way that Saito wanted to. Did Dom love Arthur more? Did he love them like a brother? Like a father? Saito was certain, at least, that there was nothing sexual in it; Dom wasn't going to develop a sudden yearning to sleep with Ariadne (or with any of the others, he mentally amended, quite sure for some reason that Dom, despite his marriage to Mal, was almost entirely without a specific sexual orientation) but there were certain... romantic feelings involved, it appeared. Their whole relationship was complex— and constantly evolving. One day Dom was berating them all as though they were playmates of James and Philippa, and the next he was trusting them to do things that Saito would not ever delegate to anyone.

And the next he was flying Saito's best ship off into nowhere, out into horrors that he knew all too well and too personally, to make sure that those he loved had a chance of coming home.

Saito just wondered how he fit into this equation.

And then he thought of Eames teasing him, back when everyone else thought of him as being an AI, teasing him about his life of luxury and 'gold bathtubs'; of Arthur devising the strange staring contest with him, which Saito always lost and denied having lost to everyone, no matter how much Arthur protested the truth of it, and claimed loudly, much to Saito's amusement, that AIs could blink; he thought of Yusuf coming in to his designated private time because he knew that Saito could and would help, without fear or thought of favor; he thought of Ariadne, his General, saying to him as they fled the Gates-City, 'Hello, Saito,' quiet and shy and formal, treating him as another man before she had ever known he was not in fact a construct of some distant machinery; he thought of Dom, calmly entrusting him with the care of James and Philippa before he went to what he had thought would be his death.

All of it such a long time before, all of it now become so integral to his life that he could not imagine how it had been before they came into it.

They had fit him in, and the fact that he did not know how was irrelevant.

There was the sound of a sudden percussion, Arthur's hand slapping against Yusuf's chest when he came too close to Eames's jack, "Ears, Yusuf. I'm not joking."

Saito was fairly sure he was... mostly. Sometimes it was difficult to judge just what level of violence Arthur would actually commit. If Ariadne was his general then Arthur was, in a way, his assassin. Not that he sent Arthur out to kill people (that would be rather counter-productive to his plans) but Arthur could portray cold ruthlessness in a way that had people agreeing to things they never thought they would. 

It made him wonder how Cato had managed to capture them and keep them under control. It had to, he supposed, have been a combination of surprise and unequal odds... or a threat to Eames.

Obviously there had been a very basic kind of threat to Eames, he knew that much, no-one could survive repeated time-jumps to the same point while refusing to interact each time, not without severe damage. And from one or two things he had managed to overhear, despite their care, he knew that Eames _had_ been damaged at some point— and then healed to a degree where he could overpower Cato, and drag him back through time to the beginning of the Psions' destruction.

It did not explain Arthur's reticence during that period— nor why, while he seemed to be the one who was playing such an almost overblown, overtly protective role, it was Eames who was always the watchful one, these days.

_Have you set spies on me?_ he had asked Dom, and no, Dom would not think of it, but was he being watched, and by someone who had undoubtedly told Dom the truth of what had happened out there on the Boneyard? 

Yes. He knew that to be a fact.

Saito glanced across the room to find Eames watching him with intense interest, but when he raised a questioning eyebrow, the man just smirked and gave Yusuf an elbow shot that finally backed him off, at least temporarily.

Hmmm, perhaps Dom was correct. Time and careful handling would be the best way to approach Eames. That he would approach him was not in doubt.

He supposed the only question was, what would he do if Eames refused?

He looked at Ariadne, yawning into her coffee again, at Dom's half-laughter as he fended off Yusuf's flailing, at Arthur's studied disinterest as he pretended to be focused back on the news.

No, there would be no help there.

But from Eames himself, from the man who had refused to reawake a whole nation for the sake of no more than a flawed and very human kind of love?

_Yes,_ Saito thought. _One day I will ask him. And I think on that day, he will not refuse._

He smiled, and drank his tea, and if to himself it was a toast to his own future success, there was, he trusted, no-one to know.

But somewhere in the dazzling emptiness that was all of time and space made tangible, he thought he heard the voice of a woman he had never met say his name, and it was a warning and it was permission and it was the opening shot of a war, all in one.

He had never met her, and yet he knew her voice.

He knew it had been her last word in this life.

_Saito,_ said the voice of Mallorie Cobb, and for one second, time shuddered around him, and even Seisui paused.

"Saito?" Dom said, curious.

Eames looked at him again, unsmiling, clear-eyed. Waiting, he thought, but not for him. For something else.

For time.

He smiled at them, keeping it small and serene and as untroubled as he could manage, and thought of the glow of a time-jack, and the changing of worlds around its light. "Nothing," he said, and turned back to his own interface, skimming through the sounds of his planet, checking for unease, and finding nothing.

_Nothing,_ he thought, and then, almost startling himself, _Nothing— yet._

He too would be waiting, as Eames already was, and he would be ready, when it came.

**FIN**

~*~

_'What have you known of loss_  
 _That makes you different from other men?'_  
\- Gilgamesh.

When the desert refused my history,  
Refused to acknowledge that I had lived  
there, with you, among a vanished tribe,

two, three thousand years ago, you parted  
the dawn rain, its thickest monsoon curtains,

and beckoned me to the northern canyons.  
There, among the red rocks, you lived alone.  
I had still not learned the style of nomads:  
to walk between the rain drops to keep dry.  
Wet and cold, I spoke like a poor man,

without irony. You showed me the relics  
of our former life, proof that we'd at last  
found each other, but in your arms I felt

singled out for loss. When you lit the fire  
and poured the wine, "I am going," I murmured,  
repeatedly, "going where no one has been  
and no one will be... Will you come with me?"  
You took my hand, and we walked through the streets

of an emptied world, vulnerable  
to our suddenly bare history in which I was,

but you said won't again be, singled  
out for loss in your arms, won't ever again  
be exiled, never again, from your arms.


End file.
